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Majid Ali, M.D. |
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WBAI-FM
New York
Dr. Ali's
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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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Order Dr. Ali's Books at
Amazon.com |
Seven Insights And
the Oxygen Theory of Aging
Seven insights form the basis of my clinical work with oxygen, the aging
process, and healthful aging. My interest in aging arose as an extension of my
search for the beginnings of diseases. Early in my pathology residency in the
late 1960s, I recognized the principal limitation of my microscope: It showed me
how cells and tissues looked after diseases had caused the damage. It could not
show me events that happened before cellular and tissue injury occurred. I
understood then that heat, cold, radiation, poisons, and microbes cause
diseases. A handful of diseases were attributed to deficiency of nutrients. But
there was no unifying concept of how such agents cause diseases. I learned how
to diagnose many diseases by the examination of biopsy and autopsy material, but
no one gave me a clear answer to how those disease processes began.
WITHERED FLOWERS DO NOT UN-WITHER
In 1983, a chance reflection on why stale buffers in the laboratory lose their
buffering capacity led to the questions of why roses wither spontaneously but
withered roses do not "un-wither" spontaneously and why cut grass decomposes
spontaneously but decomposed grass does not "undecompose" spontaneously. Eggs
rot but rotten eggs do not "unrot." People age but the aged do not
"un-age." After months of struggling with those questions, I published my
monograph, Spontaneity of Oxidation in Nature and Aging,1 in which I linked the
aging process to oxygen and spontaneity of oxidation. Since that first insight,
I have had an abiding interest in oxygen, oxygenation (addition of oxygen), and
oxidation (loss of electrons). Since writing that monograph and through two
decades of my work as a hospital pathologist, I have rarely, if ever, thought
about the cause of any disease except through my preoccupation with those three
subjects.
Six other insights (listed and described in this chapter) followed during my
research and clinical work, both as a hospital pathologist and as a clinical
researcher.2-7 That was followed by a series of publications in which I
presented many of my observations concerning the subjects of excessive oxidative
injury (oxidosis) and dysfunctional oxygen metabolism (DOM).
In this volume devoted to aging, I make several references to various chronic
disorders of oxygen metabolism. My purpose is to illustrate several important
aspects of oxidosis, acidosis, and dysoxygenosis. Indeed, my work with "mystery"
maladies—such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, chemical sensitivity
syndrome, Gulf War syndrome, and the so-called candidiasis and Epstein-Barr
syndromes—led me to the core idea of dysfunctional oxygen metabolism,8 in which
oxidosis (too much oxidation) leads to acidosis (too much acidity) and
dysoxygenosis (too little oxygen). I introduced the term oxidative-dysoxygenative
dysfunction (ODD) as a general model of oxygen disorders.9 The ODD model has a
strong explanatory power for symptom-complexes of not only the mystery maladies,
but also for such common disorders as coronary heart disease, stroke,
Alzheimer's disease, and others. Though this volume is devoted to presenting my
oxygen theory of aging—dysoxygenosis theory, in technical language—most readers
will find the material to be of direct relevance in understanding the beginnings
of diseases mentioned in this paragraph and others included elsewhere in this
book.
Beyond the issues of understanding the basic nature of the aging process and the
underlying cause of oxygen disorders, the ODD model provides us with a rational
and scientifically sound basis for formulating treatment plans for diverse
disorders—such as coronary artery disease, asthma, Alzheimer's disease, multiple
sclerosis, and others. It may surprise some that I attribute to dysfunctional
oxygen metabolism all of the disorders listed above and many more mentioned
later in this volume. Similarly, some may wonder how the same mechanism can
explain brain fog in one person and heart palpitations in another. How can skin
rashes in an eight-year-old allergic girl be attributed to the same process that
causes Alzheimer's disease in an eighty-year-old woman? What could an acute
asthma attack in a teenager and an acute attack of colitis in a middle-aged man
have in common?
TENDER MEAT GETS COOKED FIRST
I give a simple analogy to explain my basic point. Suppose we put five different
types of meat of varying degrees of tenderness in a pot full of water and turn
on the heat. It is obvious that the most tender meat will get cooked first, then
the less tender, next the tough meat, next the tougher meat, and finally the
toughest type of meat in the pot. The heat beneath the pot provides the energy
required for cooking the meat. Dysfunctional oxygen metabolism in chronic
disorders is the equivalent of heat in the meats-in-the-pot analogy. Why some
people are more troubled by persistent fatigue and others by brain fog or muscle
pain depends on their genes—what body organ serves as the spokesorgan for their
bodies. In other words, symptoms depend on how vulnerable to oxidative injury a
given tissue or body organ is. That, of course, depends on an individual's
genes. Thus, the genes determine which tissue is more tender and which tissue is
tougher. If the oxidative fires burn uncontrolled, eventually every tissue will
be affected.
The principal merit of dysfunctional oxygen metabolism (DOM) and oxidative-dysoxygenative
dysfunction (ODD) models described in this book is that it keeps the focus on
the central issue of cellular oxygen metabolism as the centerpiece of the aging
process. Integrative nutritional and herbal therapies as well as tissue
detoxification plans promote healthful aging. Below, I list those seven insights
and include a thumbnail sketch of each. Later in this volume, I devote other
chapters to an in-depth discussion of those subjects.
1. Oxygen, spontaneity of oxidation in nature, and aging.
2. Oxygen and its many Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde roles.
3. Oxygen, oxidative coagulopathy, and the absence of health.
4. Oxygen, anger, guilt, and spirituality.
5. Oxygen and microecologic cellular and macroecologic tissue- organ ecosystems.
6. Oxidative regression to primordial cellular ecology (ORPEC).
7. Oxidative-Dysoxygenative Dysfunction (ODD)
[dysfunctional oxygen metabolism].
CONTINUE TO PART 2 SEVEN
INSIGHTS INTO OXYGEN AND AGING>>>
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