Lots of helpful information and source materials to ponder here. Thank you. Also, 'Threshold Theory', which makes perfect sense, could potentially be a good bridge term for getting some of those Germ Theorists and Terrain Theorists to talk to one another some day. Maybe.
Thanks. Yes, I would agree that the Threshold Theory is the middle ground. For example, in the podcast with Chris, Ben discusses how if you took people on the street, 40% would test positive for the bacteria associated with Lymes disease, however, only a small percent would end up with Lyme symptoms. So clearly the bacteria doesn't cause Lyme. The old causation vs correlation thing. We have to explore the other causal factors why those get symptoms do, and those who don't get symptoms don't.
Dave, I’ve been LOOKING for some middle ground because I think parts of both terrain theory and germ theory are correct. Do you have a link to a good, authoritative site on Threshold Theory?
This would be more Gary’s ‘terrain’ than mine, and I see he's already replied. Thanks Gary! However, my two cents here:
As a non-scientist lay reader, I’m fairly well read on the history of virology, which I found to be riddled with problems, on Terrain Theory, and especially on Big Pharma corruption. I believe ‘Virus Mania’ by Torsten Englebrecht, Dr. Klaus Kohnlein and others is the leading work on the Terrain Theory side. I was persuaded by the arguments, questions, and the thoroughness of the documentation in this book.
Of the two camps, my impression is that the Germ Theorists tend to be less inclined towards debate, transparency, or even being questioned, and these are all red flags for me. A harsher, but not unfounded interpretation is that some virologists are like 17th century alchemists but armed with the electron microscope, which can be used as a pretext to justify any interpretation under the sun.
Although I believe virology to be highly suspect, and manifestly corrupted, I’m not in a position to write it off completely either. For instance, although Brian Mowrey’s Unglossed here on Substack often stretches my brain further than it’s able to go, I also find his work credible and genuine: https://unglossed.substack.com/
Additionally, there is a false equivalence or straw-man argument at work that positions Terrain Theorists as comprehensively denying the existence of viruses. I see the views of many of them as being much more akin to the Threshold Theory Gary described.
Above all, the Terrain Theorists have point, which precedes and supersedes the question of whether viruses exist or not. Their argument, which I agree with, is that for as long as virologists are able to operate in secrecy and not held to account to transparently demonstrate their work product with consistent, readily verifiable, and replicable methodologies, Big Pharma and those who wield power over it will be able to perpetrate catastrophic harms on humanity with impunity. I think the last three years have proven that.
Thanks again Gary. A wonderful dollop of new information and written in a very digestible prose (pun intended). My mother suffers from many chronic illnesses that all seemed to have cropped up after my father died in 1997. She was extremely healthy up to this point. She does much to ameleorate her symptoms, such as healthy eating and Pilates etc, but she also shoves a horse bag of pharmaceutical products down her throat on a daily basis too, as well as being 4x stabbed with mRNA goo. Its a wonder she's still going, but thank god she is. She must have a very strong constitution under all that anxiety and pharma toxin. If i could just convince her to try stopping to drugs and seeing a naturopath, it would be fascinating to see the results.
Very articulately put Dave, I pretty much agree with all of that, and indeed, the way in which you said it. Thise on the germ theory side of the argument certainly do not take kindly to being questioned in most cases. Im currently reading The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake. In it he writes in detail about how science has been distorted by this behaviour. There is some irony here though, as he mentions vaccines halting disease spread, albeit sparingly, but I forgave this as its not anywhere near his specialist area and the book is 10 years old, his position may have changed. I thought i might write to him to get his thoughts.
Thanks for your comment Rob, and for the recommendation. I've ordered Sheldrake's book. You make a good point about forgiving his blindspots. This is one of the joys and great advantages of being a voracious reader... we can stand on the shoulders of many different giants and actually gage where they're strong, where they are not, and what books they've read and what books they have not etc etc.
No problem Dave, couldnt agree more about the wonders of voracious reading. I only really started reading for the sheer joy of it a few years ago, but i feel about 30 years older now, in a good way. Im sure you'll love the book. I listen to his podcasts too. He's a great guy.
Yes I already subscribe to Unglossed. I really enjoy his work. I also don’t completely deny the existence of “viruses.” From dissenting views I’ve read, they exist in that strands of RNA exist, but the impact they have of living systems and the mechanisms by which they have the theorized impacts are quite as clearly understood or even proven to the extent the proponents of viral theory would have us believe.
Great article. The foundation of my Functional Nutrition studies is the microbiome, which I began learning about in 2013 at an Integrative Physician’s Symposium. But the ancient sciences like Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine, were emphasizing gut and digestive health thousands of years ago!
My former husband has Parkinson’s disease. He’s had gut issues since we met 33 years ago. I helped him by changing his diet while we were married, removing dairy and other inflammatory foods plus alcohol, which is known to contribute to leaky gut.
Yes, I found removing process foods, gluten, sugar and cow dairy, is essential for reducing PD symptoms, and that leaky gut is common, resulting in lots of food sensitivities. I also found that the "latex fruit", nightshade vegetables, red meat, and sulphur foods are anethema to my system.
That’s great! We did not eat processed foods and I raised my four children gluten, dairy, sugar and processed foods free for the most part. I couldn’t control what they ate when they were not at home.
You took control of your health and that’s what I guide my clients towards doing! Bravo! Seems you took out the foods that are not favorable for blood type O. Is that your blood type? That’s the way I eat as well.
That's interesting if there are links to blood type, not sure what mine is - I'll ask my mother is she knows. I did it the hard way, removing foods and slowly re-introducing them over a long period of trials. I found most of the foods I was eating on a regular basis while in a toxic marriage I was introlerant to, I don't think that is a co-incidence.
I also had my hair tested for heavy metals. They also suggest eating according to the different types of metals profiles. I was a "Very Poor Eliminator" type.
Slightly off-topic but do you think treatment with the "lean" type bacteria could support people who need to lose weight? You could make a fortune out of that?!!
I'm sure there will be patents for this too. I'll have a root around. However, these things tend not to work out because complex systems are not predictable when we intervene. There are doctors making money by giving people "faecal transplants" - taking some poo from people who are "healthy" and getting ill people to ingest it!!!
Yes, I know these people well as it happens. And what are you saying, that interfering with the natural course of things could have unintended bad consequences?! Please, say it isn't so!!
Jan 10, 2023·edited Jan 10, 2023Liked by Gary Sharpe
Interestingly, one of the things that I learned at the microbiome symposium was that they could make a fat mouse skinny via a fecal transplant from a skinny mouse. They’re also reversing many symptoms of autism in children with fecal transplants. It was underground, because the government didn’t allow it. One functional neurologist had done a fecal transplant on an autistic boy who regained speech and was also improving in other areas!
Thank you, Gary. I think this is very pertinent and timely information. Arriving at it from a different direction, I have long believed in the connection between the gut microbiome and chronic stress.
Thanks for the shout out Gary! The bottom line for me is that it's all related. We can't treat any one thing in our body without it having an effect on everything else, even if marginally. And when the system collapses, you need a full system reset.
Gut health is such an interesting one to me because so many people (unsurprisingly) have bought into the idea of dumping billions of "good" bacteria into our guts in the form of supplements and food additives. But I would say that's largely just so people can sell stuff to consumers. The better question to ask is why did the natural good bacteria in your gut go away in the first place? If the gut environment is inhospitable, then dumping more good bacteria in there doesn't solve the problem. It's sort of like having a gas leak in a building that kills everyone and trying to solve the issue by sending in more people. They are going to die too until you fix the gas leak itself...
Jan 12, 2023·edited Jan 12, 2023Liked by Gary Sharpe
Thank you Gary for this wonderful post!
I've lived with severe gastroparesis for most of my life. The information you shared here is very similar to the background and treatment protocol for what I guess we can call related diseases (since many seem to have a common root). I believe that vagus nerve damage is the common thread in my case, but then I would have to explain similar symptomology in relatives. There appears to be a possible disbiosis mechanism involved where the condition is passed on and the chronic damage repeats.
As an optimist (when I'm not pushing doom and gloom) I believe some of the damage can be reversed by regular fasting and use of fermented foods. The main task (as you mentioned) is to identify inflammatory inputs and reduce them. Inflammation has its place, but chronic inflammation is bad news.
It appears we could all do with an infusion of healthy microbiome material (which appears to correct hereditary traits), but I'm not keen on the transferred poop solution!
Anyway, I hope it goes well for you and all others in this struggle.
Glyphosate exposure exacerbates the dopaminergic neurotoxicity in the mouse brain after repeated administration of MPTPAuthor links open overlay panelYaoyuPuLijiaChangYougeParkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic and progressive neurodegenerative disorder. Epidemiological studies suggest that the exposure of the herbicide glyphosate may influence the development of PD in humans. In this study, we examined whether the exposure of glyphosate can affect the reduction of dopamine transporter (DAT) in the striatum and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) in the substantial nigra (SNr) of mouse brain after repeated administration of 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). Repeated injections of MPTP (10 mg/kg × 3, 2-h interval) significantly decreased the density of DAT-immunoreactivity in the striatum and the number of TH-immunoreactivity in the SNr. Glyphosate exposure for 14 days significantly potentiated MPTP-induced dopaminergic neurotoxicity in the striatum and SNr of mouse brain. This study suggests that glyphosate exposure might exacerbate MPTP-induced dopaminergic neurotoxicity in the striatum and SNr of adult mice. It is likely that exposure of glyphosate may be an environmental risk factor for PD since glyphosate has been used widely in the world.
We need more people like you in the medical field!!! I love the teams at hospital who woek together to discern health and collaboration. I was just wriging to a freind on this fery subject on the body had how this kind of collaboration is necessary and ego avoided for that very needy. this is why you are so helpful in puting gogether you program in healing and spead what you learn. No egos involved, just pure Science of healing.
Another great article, Gary. Totally with you about the "threshold" idea. Stress itself is not the problem. It's the balance between stress and resilience in my experience.
There are lots of options for doing it online - they send a test kit. and you send a sample back in a test tube in the mail. Not sure if the company I used back in 2017 is still going - uBiome.
Super interesting. Yes, the reduction system only considers one pathogen at a time in the main, it is obvious in a complex nonlinear system, interactions will be important. Unfortunately the medical and scientific establishment seem poor at thinking in nonlinear ways, Your contribution looks most valuable.
Lots of helpful information and source materials to ponder here. Thank you. Also, 'Threshold Theory', which makes perfect sense, could potentially be a good bridge term for getting some of those Germ Theorists and Terrain Theorists to talk to one another some day. Maybe.
Thanks. Yes, I would agree that the Threshold Theory is the middle ground. For example, in the podcast with Chris, Ben discusses how if you took people on the street, 40% would test positive for the bacteria associated with Lymes disease, however, only a small percent would end up with Lyme symptoms. So clearly the bacteria doesn't cause Lyme. The old causation vs correlation thing. We have to explore the other causal factors why those get symptoms do, and those who don't get symptoms don't.
Dave, I’ve been LOOKING for some middle ground because I think parts of both terrain theory and germ theory are correct. Do you have a link to a good, authoritative site on Threshold Theory?
The theory has been developed outside of academia, the best source is my friend Sela Weaver's article https://www.selahcounseling.cloud/blog/the-threshold-theory-of-embodied-experience
This is so good!!
Thanks Gary! 💗
This would be more Gary’s ‘terrain’ than mine, and I see he's already replied. Thanks Gary! However, my two cents here:
As a non-scientist lay reader, I’m fairly well read on the history of virology, which I found to be riddled with problems, on Terrain Theory, and especially on Big Pharma corruption. I believe ‘Virus Mania’ by Torsten Englebrecht, Dr. Klaus Kohnlein and others is the leading work on the Terrain Theory side. I was persuaded by the arguments, questions, and the thoroughness of the documentation in this book.
Of the two camps, my impression is that the Germ Theorists tend to be less inclined towards debate, transparency, or even being questioned, and these are all red flags for me. A harsher, but not unfounded interpretation is that some virologists are like 17th century alchemists but armed with the electron microscope, which can be used as a pretext to justify any interpretation under the sun.
Although I believe virology to be highly suspect, and manifestly corrupted, I’m not in a position to write it off completely either. For instance, although Brian Mowrey’s Unglossed here on Substack often stretches my brain further than it’s able to go, I also find his work credible and genuine: https://unglossed.substack.com/
Additionally, there is a false equivalence or straw-man argument at work that positions Terrain Theorists as comprehensively denying the existence of viruses. I see the views of many of them as being much more akin to the Threshold Theory Gary described.
Above all, the Terrain Theorists have point, which precedes and supersedes the question of whether viruses exist or not. Their argument, which I agree with, is that for as long as virologists are able to operate in secrecy and not held to account to transparently demonstrate their work product with consistent, readily verifiable, and replicable methodologies, Big Pharma and those who wield power over it will be able to perpetrate catastrophic harms on humanity with impunity. I think the last three years have proven that.
Thanks again Gary. A wonderful dollop of new information and written in a very digestible prose (pun intended). My mother suffers from many chronic illnesses that all seemed to have cropped up after my father died in 1997. She was extremely healthy up to this point. She does much to ameleorate her symptoms, such as healthy eating and Pilates etc, but she also shoves a horse bag of pharmaceutical products down her throat on a daily basis too, as well as being 4x stabbed with mRNA goo. Its a wonder she's still going, but thank god she is. She must have a very strong constitution under all that anxiety and pharma toxin. If i could just convince her to try stopping to drugs and seeing a naturopath, it would be fascinating to see the results.
Very articulately put Dave, I pretty much agree with all of that, and indeed, the way in which you said it. Thise on the germ theory side of the argument certainly do not take kindly to being questioned in most cases. Im currently reading The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake. In it he writes in detail about how science has been distorted by this behaviour. There is some irony here though, as he mentions vaccines halting disease spread, albeit sparingly, but I forgave this as its not anywhere near his specialist area and the book is 10 years old, his position may have changed. I thought i might write to him to get his thoughts.
Thanks for your comment Rob, and for the recommendation. I've ordered Sheldrake's book. You make a good point about forgiving his blindspots. This is one of the joys and great advantages of being a voracious reader... we can stand on the shoulders of many different giants and actually gage where they're strong, where they are not, and what books they've read and what books they have not etc etc.
No problem Dave, couldnt agree more about the wonders of voracious reading. I only really started reading for the sheer joy of it a few years ago, but i feel about 30 years older now, in a good way. Im sure you'll love the book. I listen to his podcasts too. He's a great guy.
Thanks so much!
Thank you Diane!
Yes I already subscribe to Unglossed. I really enjoy his work. I also don’t completely deny the existence of “viruses.” From dissenting views I’ve read, they exist in that strands of RNA exist, but the impact they have of living systems and the mechanisms by which they have the theorized impacts are quite as clearly understood or even proven to the extent the proponents of viral theory would have us believe.
Thanks so much!
*aren’t quite as clearly understood...*
Great article. The foundation of my Functional Nutrition studies is the microbiome, which I began learning about in 2013 at an Integrative Physician’s Symposium. But the ancient sciences like Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine, were emphasizing gut and digestive health thousands of years ago!
My former husband has Parkinson’s disease. He’s had gut issues since we met 33 years ago. I helped him by changing his diet while we were married, removing dairy and other inflammatory foods plus alcohol, which is known to contribute to leaky gut.
Yes, I found removing process foods, gluten, sugar and cow dairy, is essential for reducing PD symptoms, and that leaky gut is common, resulting in lots of food sensitivities. I also found that the "latex fruit", nightshade vegetables, red meat, and sulphur foods are anethema to my system.
That’s great! We did not eat processed foods and I raised my four children gluten, dairy, sugar and processed foods free for the most part. I couldn’t control what they ate when they were not at home.
You took control of your health and that’s what I guide my clients towards doing! Bravo! Seems you took out the foods that are not favorable for blood type O. Is that your blood type? That’s the way I eat as well.
That's interesting if there are links to blood type, not sure what mine is - I'll ask my mother is she knows. I did it the hard way, removing foods and slowly re-introducing them over a long period of trials. I found most of the foods I was eating on a regular basis while in a toxic marriage I was introlerant to, I don't think that is a co-incidence.
Dr. D’Amo wrote Eat Right For Your Type.
Eat Right 4 Your Type (Revised and Updated): The Individualized Blood Type Diet® Solution https://a.co/d/cU55W0I
I also had my hair tested for heavy metals. They also suggest eating according to the different types of metals profiles. I was a "Very Poor Eliminator" type.
I’ve done that as well. You are your own physician!
Slightly off-topic but do you think treatment with the "lean" type bacteria could support people who need to lose weight? You could make a fortune out of that?!!
I'm sure there will be patents for this too. I'll have a root around. However, these things tend not to work out because complex systems are not predictable when we intervene. There are doctors making money by giving people "faecal transplants" - taking some poo from people who are "healthy" and getting ill people to ingest it!!!
Yes, I know these people well as it happens. And what are you saying, that interfering with the natural course of things could have unintended bad consequences?! Please, say it isn't so!!
Yes it has happened so often -- those unintended consequences--with meddling in nature.
Interestingly, one of the things that I learned at the microbiome symposium was that they could make a fat mouse skinny via a fecal transplant from a skinny mouse. They’re also reversing many symptoms of autism in children with fecal transplants. It was underground, because the government didn’t allow it. One functional neurologist had done a fecal transplant on an autistic boy who regained speech and was also improving in other areas!
Very interesting -- fascinating even. One weird question: How does one “ingest” another person’s fecal matter? 🤮
I think you can get it in capsules these days, I think also suppositories? Perhaps Myriam has better info on this.
I haven’t followed up on it but found this on PubMed
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33471490/
An enema type of procedure. It can save the life of people with CDiff.
Ok that method sounds good. I was just wondering...
Haha what? 🤡
Thank you, Gary. I think this is very pertinent and timely information. Arriving at it from a different direction, I have long believed in the connection between the gut microbiome and chronic stress.
Fascinating and helpful information once again. I love how you connect such relevant information. Thank you, Gary.
Thanks for the shout out Gary! The bottom line for me is that it's all related. We can't treat any one thing in our body without it having an effect on everything else, even if marginally. And when the system collapses, you need a full system reset.
Gut health is such an interesting one to me because so many people (unsurprisingly) have bought into the idea of dumping billions of "good" bacteria into our guts in the form of supplements and food additives. But I would say that's largely just so people can sell stuff to consumers. The better question to ask is why did the natural good bacteria in your gut go away in the first place? If the gut environment is inhospitable, then dumping more good bacteria in there doesn't solve the problem. It's sort of like having a gas leak in a building that kills everyone and trying to solve the issue by sending in more people. They are going to die too until you fix the gas leak itself...
Thank you Gary for this wonderful post!
I've lived with severe gastroparesis for most of my life. The information you shared here is very similar to the background and treatment protocol for what I guess we can call related diseases (since many seem to have a common root). I believe that vagus nerve damage is the common thread in my case, but then I would have to explain similar symptomology in relatives. There appears to be a possible disbiosis mechanism involved where the condition is passed on and the chronic damage repeats.
As an optimist (when I'm not pushing doom and gloom) I believe some of the damage can be reversed by regular fasting and use of fermented foods. The main task (as you mentioned) is to identify inflammatory inputs and reduce them. Inflammation has its place, but chronic inflammation is bad news.
It appears we could all do with an infusion of healthy microbiome material (which appears to correct hereditary traits), but I'm not keen on the transferred poop solution!
Anyway, I hope it goes well for you and all others in this struggle.
Thank you!
Of huge interest to me.
Eschewing GMO foods is critical:
RESEARCH ARTICLE ON GMOs and PARKINSON'S
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304394020303025esearch article
Glyphosate exposure exacerbates the dopaminergic neurotoxicity in the mouse brain after repeated administration of MPTPAuthor links open overlay panelYaoyuPuLijiaChangYougeParkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic and progressive neurodegenerative disorder. Epidemiological studies suggest that the exposure of the herbicide glyphosate may influence the development of PD in humans. In this study, we examined whether the exposure of glyphosate can affect the reduction of dopamine transporter (DAT) in the striatum and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) in the substantial nigra (SNr) of mouse brain after repeated administration of 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). Repeated injections of MPTP (10 mg/kg × 3, 2-h interval) significantly decreased the density of DAT-immunoreactivity in the striatum and the number of TH-immunoreactivity in the SNr. Glyphosate exposure for 14 days significantly potentiated MPTP-induced dopaminergic neurotoxicity in the striatum and SNr of mouse brain. This study suggests that glyphosate exposure might exacerbate MPTP-induced dopaminergic neurotoxicity in the striatum and SNr of adult mice. It is likely that exposure of glyphosate may be an environmental risk factor for PD since glyphosate has been used widely in the world.
We need more people like you in the medical field!!! I love the teams at hospital who woek together to discern health and collaboration. I was just wriging to a freind on this fery subject on the body had how this kind of collaboration is necessary and ego avoided for that very needy. this is why you are so helpful in puting gogether you program in healing and spead what you learn. No egos involved, just pure Science of healing.
Another great article, Gary. Totally with you about the "threshold" idea. Stress itself is not the problem. It's the balance between stress and resilience in my experience.
In the interview with Chris, Ben Ahrens says much the same thing.
Threshold theory sounds like a version of complexity theory. Within it there all sorts of checks and balances that modulate system interactions.
Absolutely fascinating. Where would one go to have gut microbiome characterized?
There are lots of options for doing it online - they send a test kit. and you send a sample back in a test tube in the mail. Not sure if the company I used back in 2017 is still going - uBiome.
Thanks so much! Yes I’d much rather do online than go see a doctor 🙄
Fascinating
Super interesting. Yes, the reduction system only considers one pathogen at a time in the main, it is obvious in a complex nonlinear system, interactions will be important. Unfortunately the medical and scientific establishment seem poor at thinking in nonlinear ways, Your contribution looks most valuable.