The Bioelectric Field of Life

evolving into our space

 

I practiced Chiropractic for about 15 years, but rarely adjusted a patient. In fact, I’ve adjusted my 22 year old son once after his friend accidentally hit him in the back of his head when he was five. From the moment I started practicing, I began seeing patients suffering from chronic and life-threatening diseases. Most were coming to me because they had run out of options and places to turn. So, I felt a responsibility to do what I could to help. I couldn't just turn them away. I utilized acupuncture, homeopathy and every form of nutritional support that was available. I researched and applied every sensible dietary and cleansing protocol I felt might benefit my patients.

Live Cell Analysis	A few years into practice, I started utilizing Live Cell Analysis, a high-resolution darkfield technique that demonstrates metabolic and certain nutritional stresses by observing cell membrane integrity, WBC and RBC activity, bacteria, various biochemical crystals, and much more.
Healthy Blood Slide	After a few weeks, I decided to start collecting dry blood smears to see what, if any additional information, I could gather. The blood clot is fundamental to inflammation and healing. With healthy patients, it reminded me of stained glass. The red cells gave the blood smear a red appearance and the black strings of fibrin running throughout the clot gave it a tight cracked look.
Chronic Disease	However, I found that patients with a chronic or life threatening disease, it looked like water beading up on a wax surface with large spaces throughout the smear. I was becoming very intrigued with it as an indicator of the severity of a disease...the more invasive the breakdown or loss of coherency, the greater the impact the disease was having on the patient's health and vitality.
Facing Death	Unfortunately, if the disease process had resulted in a high degree of incoherency before treatment, the blood clot showed little if any improvement regardless of any treatments or how good our results were symptomatically. Within the last 2-3 weeks of life, the clot would show a weakening or breakdown in coherency that would extend throughout the border of the blood smear.

During this time, I was working on a developmental model of health and disease that addressed gait, neurologic and conscious developmental processes seen in early childhood as an evolutionary “dimensional” progression with specific metabolic and biochemical relationships. It showed the sensory part of the cell to be directly related to the cellular membrane and its polarization. Cell membrane polarization is involved in cellular communication (information/sensory), membrane permeability (metabolic health), immune function, DNA expression, and on and on...and on. With that in mind, I directed my attention to that which most influences membrane polarity, namely electrolytes, respiratory gases and sensory aspects of the nervous system for reasons I'll cover later. Keep in mind, our electrolyte balance is primarily controlled by our metabolic processes, which is at the whims of the cellular environment.

 

 

Note: The mitochondria take substrates from the cytoplasm to provide cellular energy (ATP) and initiate biosynthetic processes. The TCA/Krebs cycle provides substrates necessary for macromolecules like nucleotides, lipids, amino acids and cholesterol. They produce ATP, NADPH, as well as the electron donors in OXPHOS (NADH and FADH2). As such, mitochondria have a primary influence on the polarization of cellular membranes, as well as other cellular structures. By far, the primary influence on our biochemical environment is our food choices. Diets with a high macronutrient (proteins, fats and carbohydrates) to micronutrient (vitamins, minerals and enzymes) ratio pushes cellular metabolism in compromised directions (see Metabolic Relationships). Additionally, the metabolic processes directly affect membrane health and permeability.

 

The developmental model shows the CNS and the liver to be polar or metabolic opposites, and the membranes play a major role in their defining characteristics. The CNS is highly specialized or differentiated. It has a Blood Brain Barrier. If neurons come in contact with blood, they die. It has very poor repair and regenerative capacity. The liver, on the other hand, is not specialized. It has its hand in anything and everything related to fat metabolism, which is quite encompassing. It has the richest blood supply of any tissue. It is easy to feed. If you cut part of it off, it grows back. So, a possible conclusion was, if cells are “malnourished” they de-differentiate in order to make nutrients more available, and it starts with the cellular membrane’s health and polarity. The primary “actors” for maintaining membrane polarity are respiratory gases and the electrolytes K, Na, Cl, Mg, P, S in relation to calcium, and a healthy bipolar membrane (polar lipids). I was finding the cell membrane’s response to its internal and external environments probably carried more weight than the DNA in maintaining health and homeostasis. From that, I realized a biologic truth:

 

The cell always responds to its environment.

The cell always responds appropriately.

If you don’t like the response, change the environment.

 

I decided to first focus on respiratory gases and breath patterns, of which there are four, and the primary electrolytes. I quickly found I could temporarily improve the clot dramatically with various types of breath. For example, panting increases C02, and deeper breathing decreases C02 while increasing 02.

 

Note: When bone is fractured, there is a flow of electrons into the injury site. This is called the “injury potential”. From there cells de-differentiate to form a blastema (a collection of undifferentiated embryonic cells). This is the only tissue in humans that repairs by true regeneration, as in reproduction (zygote to blastema). Additionally, regenerative species like the salamander, regenerate its tail and extremities by the exact same process. In fact, if you graft frog cancer just proximal to cutting off the salamander’s leg, not only does the leg grow back, but the cancer will differentiate into healthy frog tissue. One theory is human regeneration is limited is because most of the nervous system is in the head vs the salamander who has most of its nervous system in the body. Thus, allowing for a greater injury potential. With that in mind, the biomechanics of spinal movement with breath and its effect on neurologic function can have a primary influence on the bioelectric field. (Note: bone is piezoelectric, meaning that it is capable of producing and amplifying electrical signals from various stimuli. Thus, bone can be supplying the increase in injury potential needed for true regeneration).

 

I had a physicist patient, who had worked on "black projects" that could detect keystrokes on a computer, build a differential meter that I could monitor dc current between the CNS and areas of the body via EKG electrodes. I was explaining spinal anatomy and gait integration to him one day and his remark was, “The spinal column is like a small nuclear generator"...and a few sentences later, I found myself nodding my head like I knew what he was talking about. He was autistically brilliant and never made eye contact.

 

I eventually focused on the sensory system for a number of reasons with emphasis on the skin's "proprioceptors" (yes, they do exist) and spinal integration with the breath movement (spinal mechanics). Skin receptors are a combination of light, deep and sutained touch, and tension receptors that can be combined in a way to provide a spatial quality. Importance of breath on spinal mechanics:

 

The spinal cord floats inside the spinal column with meningeal attachments at the upper two cervical vertebrae and into the cranium (cephalic), and the sacrum and coccyx (caudal), which create anchor points (of tension). Thus, the spine elongates slightly with the expansion of inhalation, causing a pull on the ends of the spine resulting in the occiput and sacrum slightly rolling toward the feet. With exhalation, the spine relaxes as the occiput and sacrum relax toward the head. As the spine elongates and relaxes with breath, the head, pelvis and extremities have a slight counter rotation as seen when walking. It is "tonally" set, so-to-speak.

It is the connection between the brain and the body: Carries sensory signals (dermatomes) from the body to the brain and motor signals from the brain to muscles and organs.

Manages simple reflexes (like deep tendon reflexes) independently of the brain via reflex arcs, enabling rapid responses.

Connects to the brain stem to regulate involuntary functions like heart rate, breathing, digestion, etc. by way of the Autonomic Nervous System

 

I was beginning to see my first real improvements with the blood clot by addressing various components of the sensory nervous system and utilizing different breath patterns (panting or fire breath; exercise or Groff/hypertrophic; yawning or rebirthing; and, the normal breath).

 

The space we occupy affects our developement. Rat studies have shown that the uterine environment and position in the uterine horn can affect offspring. Females that were located between two males exhibited more masculine characteristics, mounting behavior, and morphology than females contiguous to a male or near no males. The shared spaces share information via the bioelectric field.

 

Any and all movement and potential movement (pressure) of the cell, in fact, any stimulus or input, whether mechanical, chemical, electromagnetic or even consciousness itself, causes movement of electrons. Dr. Michael Levin and others have done substantial work in morphogenesis and bioelectric fields by modulating ion channels on the cell membrane with various biochemical “cocktails”. Ion channels are protein pores that act as pathways for charged molecules of electrolytes, respiratory gases, neurotransmitters, etc. resulting in an electrical gradient (polarization) across the cell membrane. It’s like rubbing wool and getting static electricity. This results in microtubule and microfilament scaffolding and re-scaffolding, nutrient delivery, cellular communication, DNA expression, tissue repair and regeneration, and even embryogenesis...and yes, evolution. All of which constitute the bioelectric field. The bioelectric field has about as much or more influence on evolution as our DNA. The DNA does not control the cell. It does what the cell membrane and mitochondria tell it to do. In the case there is a genetic error, the response will contain that error. Our health is more about the space we occupy than it is genetics.

 

Getting the conscious experience of goosebumps from a sight or sound is a neurologic response to your conscious perception or awareness of your experience...consciousness just moved some electrons around. Your awareness of the experience caused pores in the membranes to open and electrolytes, respiratory gases and neurotransmitters squeezed through and activated microtubules, etc. and some impulses were diverted to your skin and voila...goosebumps. "Bioelectric" fields entail much more than the movement of electrons. But what? There is so much more we have to learn.

 

I have demonstrated positive influence or reconstituting the bioelectric field by addressing the sensory system, breath and metabolic substrates pushing metabolism in compromising directions. Cells respond to their environment much more than we ever thought possible and in ways we never expected via the various membranes, microtubules and filaments, mitochondria, ribosomes, the DNA and more along with the other cells in the milieu. It is a complex and poorly understood process of bioelectric information that guides morphogenesis and genetic expression. As the body and its cells expand and contract, it glows with electrical potential from the movement of living. Evolution is as much about the space we occupy as it is genetics.

 

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