Majid Ali, M.D.

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Editor, The Journal of Integrative Medicine
Formerly, Associate Professor of Pathology (adj.), College of Physicians
and Surgeons of Columbia University, NY
Formerly, President of Staff and Chief Pathologist, Holy Name Hospital, Teaneck, NJ
Fellow, Royal College of Surgeons of England - Diplomate,
American Board of Anatomic and Clinical Pathology
Diplomate, American Boards of Environmental Medicine
Past President Capital University of Integrative Medicine

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Darwin, Dysox, and Our Fermenting Planet. Essay 6

I sometimes marvel how truth progresses, so difficult is it for one man to convince another,
unless his mind is vacant.
Charles Darwin, 1868, in a letter to Alfred Wallace

Evolution differentiated humans into two genders slowly, over hundreds of millions of years. Let us conduct a thought experiment. What would we expect if the evolutionary differentiative influences, which produced women and men, were to be attenuated or abolished by environmental or genetic factors? One would expect that a weakening or disruption of evolutionary influences would gradually result in loss of gender differentiation, such that women and men become "gender-skewed"— females would become "male-like" and males would become "female-like,"so to speak. If some consistent patterns of such gender-skewing caused by specific environmental or genetic factors could be recognized, can a unifying model of "gender devolution"—evolution in reverse, so to speak—be proposed to explain a vast array of seemingly disparate observations concerning gender differentiation?

In 1997, I proposed a model of cellular devolution—evolutionary regression, reversal to a mode of a primordial era—to explain my microscopic and clinical observations in individuals with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.1 In 1998, I presented a large body of biochemical data showing a global pattern of impaired Krebs cycle biochemistry in patients with chronic disorders.2 Based on the findings, I proposed a model of energetic devolution characterized by respiratory-to-fermentative shift in ATP generation to explain the molecular basis of symptom-complexes of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.3-4 In Oxygen and Aging (2000), I surveyed a large body of clinical, epidemiologic, biochemical, microscopic, and experimental observations to support my view that impaired Krebs cycle chemistry and deranged oxygen signaling form the basis of all common clinical disorders.5 In subsequent publications,6-24 my colleagues at the Institute of Integrative Medicine, New York, and I reported clinical outcome studies of patients managed with integrated protocols with a sharp focus on all relevant oxygen issues, including coronary artery disease, renal failure, pain syndromes, allergy and asthma, arrested growth in children, and autoimmune disorders. In each case, we closely examined the issues of pathogenesis of various disease processes, looking through the prism of oxygen homeostasis.

Now, I propose the dysox model of gender devolution as an extension of my earlier models of cellular and energetic devolutions by raising these eight questions:

1. If gender devolution does occur, what phenotypic changes may be anticipated in gender-skewed females?

2. What phenotypic changes may be anticipated in gender-skewed males?

3. How large is the problem of cord chemicals? What might be its delayed consequences?

4. What hormonal abnormalities may be anticipated in gender-skewed females and males?

5. If gender devolution does occur, what metabolic derangements and degenerative disorders may be anticipated in affected individuals?

6. What environmental toxins—"gender-twisters," so to speak—may be incriminated in the cause of gender devolution?

7. What genetic mutations—loss-of-function, gain-of-function, deletions, and others—may be expected to underlie gender devolution?

8. Drug companies will undoubtedly promote the use of their drugs to treat the consequences of "gender-evolution-in-reverse." What short-term and long- term consequences of such an ill-advised drug approach may be predicted?

I conceived the idea of the dysox model of gender devolution on January 2, 2008 when I found that The New England Journal of Medicine advised doctors to prescribe metformin (trade names: Glucophage, Diabex, Fortamet, Riomet, Glumetza, and others), a diabetes drug, to treat polycystic ovary syndrome.25 The article shocked me. The author was blissfully ignorant of all energetic-molecular derangements that cause polycystic ovary syndrome. Of course, metformin does not address any of the underlying issues of the syndrome. It just adds another chemical stressor to the patient. I argue that the Journal's approach is misguided and fraught with serious dangers for the patient. No surprise there, since the Journal is essentially a journal of the pharmaceutical industry. It rarely, if ever, vigorously addresses issues of toxic environments, toxic thoughts, and toxic foods.

(Please see essay 7 of the Darwin, Dysox, and Our Fermenting Planet series for continuation of this discussion. See "Darwin, Dysox, and Our Fermenting Planet - References " for references)