The Human Operating Manual

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The Elements

From your home to the planet itself, our environmental exposure shapes who and what we become.

Boundless (ref) Shaky grounds. Requires further research

Electricity

Bioelectromagnetics, the interaction between living organisms and electric and magnetic fields, both those produced by organisms and those from other sources. Areas of study in bioelectromagnetics include cell membrane potential and the electric currents that flow in nerves and muscles; the physiological effects of man-made sources of electromagnetic fields such as mobile phones; the ability of living cells, tissues, and organisms to produce electrical fields; and how cells respond to electromagnetic fields.

A number of studies have been conducted on magnetic fields and electric fields to investigate their effects on cell metabolism, cell turnover, cell death, and tumor growth. One of the better summaries of some of the shocking discoveries made in these studies is the book The Non-tinfoil Guide to EMFs: How to Fix Our Stupid Use of Technology by Nicolas Pineault, while two of the best books for understanding the voltage potential of the body and the fact that we are all basically giant batteries are Healing Is Voltage by Jerry Tennant and The Body Electric by Robert Becker.

EMF is everywhere:

  • It’s a form of environmental pollution that’s emitted by domestic appliances, military installations, industrial machines, computers, broadcast and communications transmitters, and all other electrically powered devices. EMF radiation can cause headaches, vision problems, anxiety, irritability, depression, nausea, fatigue, disturbed sleep, poor physical performance, and loss of motivation. Even worse, all metallic objects, including electrical circuits, telephone wiring, water and gas pipes, and even the metal objects we carry on our bodies, such as keys, watches, and jewelry, can act as antennae that collect and magnify these energy waves, creating a compounding effect that significantly alters the natural balance of our body’s biochemical energy patterns.
  • Entrainment, also known as “sympathetic resonance,” is the tendency of an object to vibrate at the same frequency as an external stimulus. It’s why grounding works so well. But while the frequencies used in grounding take advantage of the natural frequency of the earth, when you become entrained to any disruptive external frequency—such as the frequency emitted by your wireless router—you can lose the integrity of your intrinsic frequencies (like the natural vibration of your cells), which can degrade physical and mental performance and create huge potential for some serious downstream health issues.

The Non-tinfoil Guide to EMFs:

  • In the last one hundred years, the microwave radiation we’re exposed to has increased a quintillion times and it’s still steadily increasing
  • EMF exposure triggers oxidative stress in your cells after just five seconds.
  • In 2017, the Phonegate Alert report, found that 90% of all cell phones in the world exceed acceptable radiation standards.
  • One study gave 30 healthy volunteers a simple memory test without any exposure to WiFi radiation, then gave them the test again while they were exposed to a 2.4 GHz WiFi. Half the participants experienced noticeable decrease in memory accompanied by a change in brain activity and a drop in brain frequency levels related to alertness.
  • Children generally absorb twice the amount of radiation as adults (and their bone marrow alone absorbs up to ten times more). Exposure to radio frequency radiation from WiFi and cellular phones can disrupt normal cellular development, especially in babies and children. Several studies have linked radiation exposure to delayed kidney development; the disruption of protein synthesis is so severe that the authors of one study noted, “This cell property is especially pronounced in growing tissues, that is, in children and youth. Consequently, these population groups would be more susceptible than average to the described effects.”
  • A 2007 study investigated the impact of low-frequency cell phone signals on sleep. Participants were exposed to the signals from real phones or a placebo signal from fake phones. Those exposed to the real signals had a significantly more difficult time falling asleep and experienced changes in brain wave patterns deleterious to sleep.
  • A group of Danish high schoolers placed one group of plants in a room that was shielded from wireless radiation, and they placed another group in a room with two WiFi routers, which together emitted the same amount of radiation as a cell phone. The plants in the room with the radiation didn’t grow nearly as well as those in the other room, and the closer a plant was to a router, the sicklier it was. In photos, they appear to be colorless and shrunken.

5G uses bandwidths of extremely high-frequency millimeter waves (MMW), between 30 GHz and 300 GHz, in addition to some lower and midrange frequencies. But high-frequency MMWs travel a short distance, don’t travel well through buildings, and tend to be absorbed by rain and plants, leading to signal interference. This means 5G infrastructure will require a host of cell towers situated closer together.

5G signal may have these effects:

  • DNA single- and double-strand breaks
  • Excess oxidative damage that leads to tissue deterioration and premature aging
  • Disruption of cell metabolism due to cell membrane damage
  • Increased permeability of the blood-brain barrier
  • Melatonin reduction (leading to insomnia and, because melatonin has an antioxidant effect, increasing cancer risks and further oxidative damage)
  • Disruption of brain glucose metabolism

An acoustimeter, a simple, affordable device that allows me to test microwave, dirty electricity, and radio frequency (RF) of any of my own devices, technology, appliances, along with any hotel room I stay in. A reading of more than 3.0 μW/m2 on the meter is considered dangerous to cellular biology, and, most concerningly, my own body spikes to that level when I’m merely holding my iPhone.

Sleep Better (The Immunity Fix)

Here’s what to protect yourself against EMF and makes you more resilient:

  • Scan Your Bedroom – To know how much radiation you’re getting, use an EMF and EMC detector. You’d be surprised that even in a room with no electronics there’s still this low-grade pulsation of radio-waves that inevitably has an effect on your physiology. The closer you are to the emitting device the bigger effect it has. That’s why keeping your phone on airplane mode when you’re not using it is paramount. Dimmer switches are a source of dirty electricity so consider using regular on/off ones.
  • Turn Off Your WiFi – It’s a good idea to minimize the amount of EMFs in your surroundings. You can’t avoid all the radio waves coming from your neighbors but the least you can and should do is turn off your WiFi. If you have a router right next to the bed, then it’s going to be quite detrimental to your sleep quality. With the exponential increases in bandwidth and speed, it’s basically a mini cell tower. Ideally, you’d want to swap out all WiFi in your house for an Ethernet cable connection. It’s a lot faster and safer than wireless. The same applies to all the Bluetooth smart TVs and refrigerators. Do you really need those sorts of things? It’s much smarter to make your household as EMF-proof as possible so that you’d have a better time dealing with it elsewhere.
  • Use Battery-Powered Alarm Clocks – If you happen to be still using alarm clocks, then stick to the old-school battery-powered ones. It would be quite unfortunate to have a small electric EMF generator buzzing right next to your head for the entire night. They should also have no artificial light because that’s going to further disrupt melatonin production.
  • If you have children, don’t keep wireless baby monitors or other devices near their cradle while they’re sleeping. Instead, use a hard-wired monitor.
  • Keep Your Phone on Airplane Mode – If you’re carrying your phone in your pocket or on your body, consider using airplane mode. Otherwise, you’re blasting your organs and cells with EMF. When having a call, use the speaker function or the microphone from headphones. Putting it next to your head is also not a good idea. And putting your smartphone under your pillow while you sleep with 5G turned on is a worse idea. It should be off or on airplane mode during the night, especially if you keep it next to your bed.
  • Get Grounded – Walking outside on the grass with your bare feet can lower the excitation from EMF. When you are grounded, electrons move from the Earth to the body and vice versa. This will maintain the body’s negative charge electrical potential similar to the Schuman Resonance. You may then experience less oxidative stress and inflammation because of putting yourself into a state of less excitation. Unfortunately, grounding can be dangerous in most urban areas, especially in North America, because of underground wiring and dirty electricity. That is hyper-exposure. The safest and most effective place for grounding is in beach waters where you get full-spectrum sunlight, you’re grounded and exposed to the negative ions from the sea.
  • Use a Grounding Mat – To get the same grounding effect indoors, you’d have to drive a metal rod into the ground outside and have a wire run from the rod inside. That’s pretty complicated not to mention having to be in contact with the wire itself all the time. Fortunately, there are technological alternatives like grounding mats, earthing sheets, bands and patches.

Light

The negative health impact of artificial light sources includes the risk of cataracts, blindness, age-related macular degeneration, mitochondrial dysfunction, metabolic disorders, heart disease, and more. One 2015 meta-analysis reviewed 85 scientific articles and showed that outdoor artificial lights, such as street lamps and outdoor porch lights, are a risk factor for breast cancer and that more-intense indoor artificial light elevates this risk. This study also showed that exposure to artificial bright light at night suppresses melatonin secretion, increases sleep onset latency, and increases alertness, and that the circadian misalignment caused by artificial light exposure can have significant negative effects on psychological, cardiovascular, and metabolic functions.

The Dangers of LEDs:

LEDs pose significant environmental risks and toxicity hazards because they contain high amounts of arsenic, copper, nickel, lead, iron, and silver. LEDs can also cause irreversible retinal damage to the photoreceptors in your eye and have been shown to induce necrosis in eye tissue.

LED lamps are a form of digital lighting. In a color-changing system that allows you to dim or adjust the color of the lights, there are typically three LED sources: red, green, and blue. The intensity of these sources has to be changed to achieve different colors, and this means the LEDs rapidly alternate between on at full intensity and completely off over and over again, resulting in a lighting phenomenon called flicker. Even though it appears to your naked eye that the LEDs aren’t changing color or intensity that much, your retina perceives this flicker, and you can often observe this phenomenon if you use an older camera or a device called a flicker detector to record an LED light in your house or an LED backlit computer monitor.

Research has shown that this flicker can irreparably damage the photoreceptor cells in the retina, resulting in headaches, poor eyesight, brain fog, lack of focus, increased risk of cataracts, and sleep disruptions. Unfortunately, energy-saving lamps such as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) can also cause similar issues, along with endocrine and hormonal damage, and they can also induce oxidative stress damage that affects not only the eyes but also sensitive photoreceptors on many other areas of the skin.

The Benefits of Natural Light (and Dark):

mTOR, the master fuel sensor in our cells, facilitates protein synthesis and growth while inhibiting the recycling of damaged cells, and more natural light can activate mTOR. This is one reason plants and humans grow more in the summertime—not only is there more food abundance, but there’s more natural light, too. But your body also needs darkness, and winter.

The master fuel sensor in the winter and in darkness, including at night, is AMP-0- activated protein kinase (AMPK), which optimizes energy efficiency and stimulates the recycling of cellular materials. Now, consider what happens if you are constantly exposed to light: your hormones and metabolism shift toward constant mTOR activation growth and anabolism, which, in excess, is generally associated with cancer and shortened life span. On the flip side, when you experience periods of darkness (along with, ideally, fasting), you strike a balance between constant anabolism with no cellular cleanup and smart catabolism with adequate time for natural cell turnover.

Air

Depression and suicide linked to air pollution: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/18/depression-and-suicide-linked-to-air-pollution-in-new-global-study

Brake dust immune cell effect similar to diesel exhaust: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/852132

Air pollution pandemic: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/868320

When pregnant women are exposed to air pollution, it can cause preterm births and is associated with asthma, autism, lower IQ, and worse performance on standardized tests in their children. In 2018, CNN reported on a major study showing that the same air pollution that results in cognitive decline now affects 95% of humans worldwide.

Indoor air pollution is caused by particles like pollen, dust, pet dander, mold spores, and smoke combined with ozone, gases, and volatile organic compounds emitted by building materials, furniture, carpeting, paint, household cleaners, and personal care products.

One of the key ways air pollution causes damage is by causing inflammation, along with sabotaging cellular methylation processes and impairing immune system T cell function. Air pollution has been shown to cause inflammation that hardens the arteries, and free radicals from gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel to incite a host of oxidative stress on the body. New studies suggest that exposure to high pollution levels can increase the risk of autism and dementia, accelerate the rate of calcium deposits in the arteries, increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, and affect pancreatic function.

Exercise and Air Pollution:

One study in the journal Building and Environment found unacceptably high levels of carbon dioxide, formaldehyde, and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as well as particle pollution in multiple indoor fitness centers.

Indoor mold can be even more damaging than well-known pollutants such as asbestos and lead, and, unfortunately, mold is common in gyms, locker rooms, swimming pool areas, and saunas because these areas are full of bacteria and moist air. Inhaling mold toxins can be just as harmful as eating mold on a piece of old food.

Particulate matter is a mixture of solid and liquid droplets such as nitrates, sulfates, organic chemicals, metals, and soil or dust. It can come from rubber mats, metal plates, and dumbbells banging together, and even has pieces of dead skin from other people working out.

Exposure to high levels of VOCs can cause skin irritation, neurotoxicity, and hepatotoxicity (toxicity of the liver). Over 80 percent of the gyms that have been studied exceed the acceptable level of unsafe VOCs, which include compounds such as formaldehyde, fire retardants, acetone, and other substances that off-gas from carpeting, furniture, cleaners, and paint. Levels of VOCs tend to be higher in gyms with newer equipment and in spaces that have been recently cleaned.

Why you should exercise outdoors:

Getting frequent exposure to temperature fluctuations and weather—cold air, snow, rain, sun, heat, and other environmental variables—can increase stress resilience, burn more calories, increase cardiovascular performance, and get you more fit. Scientists have long known that sunlight can lower depression, especially depression from seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

An article in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology, “Natural Environments, Ancestral Diets, and Microbial Ecology: Is There a Modern ‘Paleo-Deficit Disorder’?,” highlighted research from as early as the 1960s showing that early-life experience with microbiota and other bacteria found in outdoor situations, along with environmental stress, can positively influence longevity and health. The authors recognized the coevolutionary relationship between microbiota and the human host and pointed out that there is worse health, more anxiety and depression, and higher incidence of immune-related diseases in developed nations that have become too sanitized.

What about outdoor air pollution?:

The New England Journal of Medicine, concluded that women who live in areas with high amounts of soot in the air are more likely to die from a heart attack than women who live in cleaner air. Researchers concluded that soot particles are especially harmful to athletes who take in higher concentrations during exercise.

At the University of Edinburgh, healthy subjects were made to exercise for 30 minutes on stationary bikes inside a laboratory that piped in diesel exhaust fumes at levels similar to that of a busy highway during rush hour. Researchers found that their blood vessels were less able to distribute blood and oxygen to the muscles, and their levels of tissue plasminogen activators, which are naturally occurring proteins that dissolve clots in the blood, significantly decreased. Because of these findings, the researchers concluded that working out along polluted roads may possibly set in motion the preliminary stages of a heart attack or stroke.

A 2010 study in the Netherlands utilized epidemiological data and estimated that short daily trips using a bicycle in polluted cities would take away between 0.8 to 40 days from a person’s average life span. But the researchers also found that the additional exercise would lengthen an individual’s life span by three to fourteen months. It appears, therefore, that exercising outdoors is indeed better than not working out at all, even in an urbanized and polluted area.

Water

Fluoride has a good anti-decay effect when you apply it directly to the tooth but you don’t have to swallow the stuff, and frankly, when it comes to tooth decay, there is little to no difference between countries with fluoridated water and countries with nonfluoridated water. Unfortunately, this can cause cancer, hip fracture, dental fluorosis, stained teeth, neurological impairment, lower IQ in children, and learning disorders.

Chlorine is probably one of the more common chemicals that many health enthusiasts encounter in the gym or in drinking water. Particularly in swimming pools that are not naturally cleaned, we soak up chlorine through our skin while simultaneously breathing in chloramines, the toxic byproducts that form when chlorine reacts with organic matter such as dead skin cells. This chlorine exposure can cause both cell wall damage and internal soft tissue damage, along with autoimmune, asthma, and allergy issues. If you’re not filtering your water, chlorine can even vaporize from toilet bowls and into the air as you wash your clothes or dishes!

EX Water and DDW:

In his TEDx Talk “Water, Cells, and Life” and his books The Fourth Phase of Water and Cells, Gels, and the Engines of Life, Gerald Pollack explained the role of water in the functioning of cells and the importance of negatively charged structured water, also known as exclusion zone (EZ) water. This water can both hold and deliver electrical energy, much like a battery.

Typical tap water is simply H2O, but EZ water is actually H3O2, which is more viscous and alkaline than regular water and has a refractive index about 10 percent higher, allowing it to more readily respond to light photons from sources such as an infrared sauna, photobiomodulation light panels, and sunlight. It is also the same kind of negatively charged water that your cells and extracellular tissue naturally contain. This is important because cell membranes are hydrophilic (water-loving) surfaces with a net negative charge, and EZ water can accumulate next to these hydrophilic surfaces.

As negatively charged particles from the water and the cell membranes repel each other, energy is created. This is because a key factor that allows positive charges to migrate into a cell is the water surrounding the cell. The electrical conductivity of water acts like a battery that drives the cellular machinery by inducing a charge separation that is able to shuttle positive protons along the cellular cytoskeleton while leaving negatively charged electrons in the water.

If you always thought this was achieved by a sodium-potassium pump, as most biology textbooks still teach, then you should look up the work of Gilbert Ling on PubMed, where you’ll find research articles that thoroughly debunk the notion of a sodium-potassium pump.

Dr. Thomas Cowan wrote in his books Human Heart, Cosmic Heart and Cancer and the New Biology of Water about how this negative charge allows blood, which consists largely of water, to more easily navigate through the chambers of the heart, reducing cardiovascular strain and increasing overall heart health. Dr. Stephanie Seneff has an excellent TEDx Talk about how negatively charged ions in EZ water help to generate sulfate, which enhances cell fluidity and reduces any tendency for cells to clump, particularly when sunlight is present. EZ water may even upregulate p53, a transcription factor that acts as a potent tumor suppressor and modulator of DNA damage, making it potentially useful for cancer therapy.

Then there’s deuterium-depleted water (DDW). DDW—which can be purchased in bottles or created by a DDW generator—is also known as “light water” and contains a very low concentration of deuterium. Deuterium is a hydrogen isotope that has roughly double the mass of a hydrogen atom. This means that high amounts of deuterium in the body—which are often found in people who have been exposed to pesticides, herbicides, municipal water, a high-sugar or acidic diet, or many other unhealthy scenarios—can displace hydrogen and deleteriously impact cell function. Reducing levels of deuterium can restore proper cell function and health.

According to Pollack, you can build EZ water naturally in your cells by not only drinking pure and preferably structured water, but also by chilling your water, exposing your water to sunlight or infrared light, drinking fresh vegetable juice, drinking coconut water blended with turmeric, exposing your bare skin to sunlight, using an infrared sauna, and walking barefoot outside, which allows you to absorb negatively charged ions from the surface of the earth. According to Robert Slovak, the same can be said for DDW: by lowering your carbohydrate intake and increasing your healthy fat intake, you can cause your body, through the process of beta-oxidation, to produce its own DDW!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pfas-chemicals-in-sparkling-water-polar-topo-chico-study/

Radiation:

One problem with radiation is that certain glands and tissues with high amounts of iodine receptors, including thyroid, prostate, and breast tissue, are extremely sensitive to oxidation and cell damage from radiation, especially when these tissues are low in the nutrient iodine. When radioactive iodine (found in most forms of radiation, including all the stuff that gets blown into the atmosphere after a disaster such as Fukushima) gets into areas of your body that have numerous iodine receptors, if these receptors are lacking iodine, then the radioactive iodine latches on and begins ionizing, oxidizing, and harming these tissues. If the receptors have had adequate dietary exposure to iodine, then they are already filled with normal iodine and do not readily grab the radioactive version of iodine.

The other issue with radiation is that it is highly capable of causing oxidation, just as eating a lot of heated vegetable oil or sugar can cause free-radical damage, but to a much greater extent. 

Heavy Metal Exposure:

Even though about 50% of dentists in the US are now mercury-free, only an estimated 10% of dentists fully understand the health risks associated with amalgam fillings—which contain toxic mercury, despite what the term silver filling might lead you to believe. If you decide you want to pull the metal out of your mouth, then you should know that the process of removing and replacing amalgam fillings comes with the risk of acute toxicity from the mercury released during the removal process, and this can cause serious damage to organs such as your liver and kidney.

Holistic dentists (also known as a “biological dentist”), make a special effort to limit your exposure to toxins and chemicals. When they’re removing amalgam fillings, they use a cold-water spray to minimize mercury vapors, put a dental dam in your mouth so you don’t swallow or inhale any toxins, use a high-volume evacuator near the tooth at all times to evacuate the mercury vapor, wash out your mouth out immediately after the fillings have been removed, and use powerful air purifiers in each room. They also take precautions during regular cleanings, such as using natural products to ensure you are not exposed to chemicals and toxins.

Unfortunately, you can get heavy-metal exposure from all sorts of sources that go way beyond metal in your mouth. These sources include:

  • Smog
  • Car keys
  • Toys made in China
  • Secondhand cigarette smoke
  • Pesticides and herbicides
  • Protein powders and dietary supplements
  • “Pristine” water (like my local Lake Coeur d’Alene) that in fact has high amounts of mining runoff
  • Food stored in metal containers
  • Big fish like tuna and dolphin
  • Nuclear fallout from the Fukushima disaster in Japan

Chelators bind by way of ionic bonds, which are the attractions between the positive charge of a heavy metal and the negative charge of the chelating molecule. Because of this, chelation can extract precious minerals from your body, but it can also spread metals throughout your body, so that they wind up deposited elsewhere. So to get heavy metals out of your body, I do not recommend chelation drugs or natural chelation. Instead, I recommend you use natural compounds that can gently draw heavy metals out of your body.

JayPT +