CHAPTER TWO

The Human Body: A Living Ecosystem
We live on a planet with limited resources with only one contribution from the atmosphere outside of us—the energy from the sun. The sun is the very source that fuels life on our planet, working in harmony with all of the other elemental forces of nature to create for us an abundant existence. And while the prospect of virtually limitless energy is no longer science fiction, modern-day technologies and industries continue to tap into and pollute our Earth’s ecosystems to the detriment of our future and our children’s future on planet Earth. Not only are we out of harmony with our environment through a distorted viewpoint of “separation thinking”—a consciousness that believes it is separate from planet Earth—we are destroying our earth, our bodies, ourselves. A return to “oneness thinking” for ourselves as well as our planet is necessary if we are to survive.

Throughout this chapter, my hope is to take you into a new understanding of “oneness thinking,” which is this: Our bodies, our earth, are made up of living ecosystems, and to experience health and a state of well-being that we were designed to live, the pH of living ecosystems must remain in a state of balance. Balance is the key.

ECOSYSTEMS DEFINED

A living ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of a community of interdependent living organisms such as plants, animals, and microorganisms that live symbiotically in the environment they inhabit. The ecology of an ecosystem consists of the relationships and interactions between every living organism and its natural or unnatural environments. Ecosystems are functional units consisting of living things in a given area, non-living chemical and physical factors of their environment, linked together through nutrient cycle and energy flow. An ecosystem can consist of any form or any size—a log, pond, lake, field, forest, the Earth’s biosphere, and even the human body.

The main source of energy for every ecosystem is the sun. In fact, the health and well-being of every living organism begins and ends with the sun. Plants capture the sun’s energy and use it to convert inorganic compounds into organic compounds. This process of using the sun’s energy to convert minerals such as magnesium or nitrogen from the soil into plant growth is called photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis is vital for all aerobic life on planet Earth. It is made available to other living organisms through a pathway known as the food chain. In the hierarchy of the food chain, each group feeds on the group below it.

This way of feeding can be used to divide every living creature existing within the same ecosystem into three categories: producer organisms, consumer organisms, and reducer organisms.

Green Plants Are Producer Organisms

Through the process of photosynthesis, green plants produce the food upon which all other organic life depends. They are called producer organisms because they convert the sun’s energy directly into complex compounds that either form the body of the plant itself or are stored as phytonutrients in seeds, nuts, and fruits. Green plants form the beginning of the food chain. Through green plants, photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and water, releasing oxygen as a waste product. Photosynthesis is the key to maintaining normal atmospheric oxygen levels.

Herbivores Are Consumer Organisms

Animals such as deer, rabbits, cattle, squirrels, and seed-eating birds are called consumer organisms because they acquire their energy second hand from consuming green plants or their nuts, seeds, and fruits.

Scientific evidence suggests that humans, like primates, are
herbivores, but mostly frugivores (fruit eaters), by ecological design.

Omnivores Are Secondary Consumer Organisms

Omnivores such as opossums, pigs, bears, chickens, emus, and a variety of birds eat both plant foods and meat for their nourishment and are therefore mixed primary and secondary consumer organisms.

Carnivores Are Secondary Consumer Organisms

Carnivores such as owls, vultures, wolves, and bobcats are called secondary consumer organisms because they derive their energy from eating the herbivores.

Microorganisms Are Reducer Organisms

Microbes such as bacteria, fungi, yeast, parasites, and algae are called reducer organisms because their inherent function is to decompose and devour all that is dead and dying back into the dust of the earth, thus cleaning up the environment for the living. Often perceived as germs or pests, reducer organisms are a misunderstood and necessary part of the food chain.

If any environment provides reducer organisms
with a food supply, rest assured, they will come!

Now let’s take a look into the anatomical make-up of the human body, how our body’s ecosystems thrive, and how, like the ecosystems of the earth, they become diseased and die.

THE HUMAN BODY

Based on the chemical elements of the periodic table, the human body is, by weight, composed of 65 percent oxygen, 18 percent carbon, 10 percent hydrogen, 3 percent nitrogen along with an inner sea of electrolyte minerals and trace mineral compounds. For most, it’s hard to believe that 99 percent of the mass of the human body is made up of just six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorous. In essence, our bodies are made up of air, fire, earth, and water—just like planet Earth!

The following chart decodes the elemental composition of the human body as it pertains to our physical existence.

The Human Body

Other known essential minerals that make up the human body include: zinc, rubidium, strontium, bromine, lead, copper, aluminum, cadmium, cerium, barium, tin, titanium, boron, nickel, selenium, chromium, arsenic, lithium, cesium, mercury, germanium, molybdenum, cobalt, antimony, silver, niobium, zirconium, lanthanum, gallium, tellurium, yttrium, bismuth, thallium, indium, gold, scandium, tantalum, vanadium, thorium, uranium, samarium, beryllium, tungsten.

While the human body is made up of mostly oxygen, our bodies, our earth, became one big body of water when oxygen and hydrogen merged in a particular way, making our bodies approximately 75 percent water (H₂O) with cells consisting of 65 to 90 percent water. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that most of the human body’s mass is oxygen with its counterpart being hydrogen.

Throughout this chapter, the most important thing to keep in mind is that water, by weight, is made up of mostly oxygen, and oxygen is the key to a vibrant, healthy life.

THE TERM pH DEFINED

In scientific terms, pH stands for potential of Hydrogen. While the word potential means latent possibility, the word hydrogen breaks down into two different meanings: Hydro comes from a Greek word, meaning water and gen comes from a Greek word, meaning created from or born of. Thus, the term pH translates as “the latent possibility of water.”

In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of an aqueous solution. This measurement equates to the number of ions that are negatively charged (alkaline) or positively charged (acid). Ultimately, it is a way of measuring the amount of electrical energy present in a solution. The more negatively charged ions present, the greater the electrical energy; the more positively charged ions present, the weaker the electrical energy.

The pH scale runs from 0–14. Water with a pH measurement of 0–7 is acid—the closer to zero, the more acidic the water. A pH measurement of 7.0 is defined as neutral, being neither acid nor alkaline. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0. Any number greater than 7.0 is alkaline—the higher the number the greater the alkalinity.

It is a known fact that bodies of water thrive when its pH is in a state of ecological balance. It is also a known fact that it dies when its pH is in a state of ecological imbalance.

HOW BODIES OF WATER THRIVE OR DIE

The Earth is composed of vast waterways that run through towns and cities. In fact, the Earth, just like the human body, is composed of approximately 75 percent water. Our communities depend upon these great bodies of water and their tributaries for electrical energy, transporting commodities from one place to another, and being a powerful energy source for hydroelectric plants. For communities to thrive, the ecological balance of waterways is extremely important.

To understand how bodies of water thrive or how they die, let’s consider what happened to one of our greatest bodies of water, Lake Erie.

Lake Erie, one of the most productive Great Lakes of Canada and the United States, was thriving and replete with ecological life until the industrial plants that surrounded the lake began consistently dumping toxic chemicals such as phosphates from sewage treatment plants into its waters. In the early 1970s, Lake Erie became so polluted that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pronounced it dead.

Researchers suggested that the death of Lake Erie was caused by the massive overgrowth of algae blooms due to the over feeding of phosphates (food for algae), which in turn killed large populations of fish that swam in its waters. Others blamed the dying fish on an infestation of pathogenic bacteria. And while both of these scenarios are true, could Lake Erie have died a slow death because of a series of ecological breakdowns, caused by an overly acidic environment? I believe it did.

Phosphates are a salt of phosphoric acid, which is highly acidic. And remember, an acid solution consists of positively charged ions and an alkaline solution consists of negatively charged ions.

Negative environmental effects always include hypoxia, the depletion of oxygen in the water, which induces reductions in specific fish and other aquatic populations. Therefore, it was the overfeeding of phosphates (acidic food) into Lake Erie, which, in turn, lowered the lake’s oxygen levels.

The more acidic the water became, the more the algae blooms overgrew; then, the more the algae overgrew, the lower the oxygen levels became; the lower the oxygen levels became, the sicker the fish became; the sicker the fish became, the lower their immunity became; the lower their immunity became, the more infected they became with pathogenic bacteria. And in the world of ecology, pathogenic bacteria are a significant part of nature’s food chain; they are, in fact, reducer organisms that show up on the scene to reduce what is dead or dying back into the dust of the earth.

To compound an already compromised situation, Lake Erie’s waters became so polluted with oily petroleum-based sludge and the gaseous products of rot and fermentation that the surface of the lake actually caught fire. Dead bloated fish were said to have exploded as they rose to the surface. Johnny Carson joked that Lake Erie was simply a place where fish that had a death urge went to die.

Fortunately, after the EPA forced shoreline industrial plants to drastically reduce their acidifying chemical dumping frenzy by 80 percent, the lake, over time, restored itself.

HOW THE HUMAN BODY THRIVES OR DIES

Since the human body, like the Earth, is made up of mostly water and water is made up of mostly oxygen, Lake Erie’s fate is a perfect metaphor for understanding how the human body thrives or how it becomes diseased and dies.

Like the Earth, our bodies have an intricate circulatory system made up of a complex network of various sized tributaries that run through our towns (glands) and cities (organs) called veins, arteries, and capillaries. These tributaries are designed to also transport essential commodities such as oxygen and vital nutrients from one area of the body to another as well as being a powerful source of electrical energy.

Our internal tributaries have trillions of cells that swim throughout the waters of our body, just like the fish that swim in lakes and oceans. In fact, water not only flows everywhere outside of us, it flows inside of us, circulating in and out of every little nook and crevice. Water is inside the cell and outside the cell. Our bodies are, in fact, one massive network of waterways.

For our towns (glands) and cities (organs) to thrive, ecological balance and sustainability of these waterways is absolutely everything.

Ecological balance and sustainability of our internal waterways is mostly based on the electrolyte-mineral composition and quantity of water our cells are swimming in, which includes blood, lymph, and gastric juices. When our waters are alkaline, electrolyte-mineral–rich, high in oxygen, and free of toxic waste, our natural cells thrive. But when our waters are acid, electrolyte-mineral–poor, low in oxygen, and full of toxic waste, our waterways become overrun with yeast cells and our natural cells suffocate and die at an alarming rate.

Yeast, a unicellular fungus similar to algae, is an intrinsic organism that lives in small colonies throughout our internal waterways. Like algae, it, too, will grow out of control when overfed or if it needs to clean up a toxic threat. If left unchecked, yeast can change their form into a more invasive multicellular form known as Candida.

According to Dr. Doug Graham, author of The 80-10-10 Diet, Candida is a microbe that lives in the bloodstream and is inherently designed to be there in a regulated fashion moderated by our blood sugar. Candida lives on blood sugar and when our blood sugar is present in normal amounts, the amount of Candida remains stable and our internal environment thrives.

The problem arises when blood sugar becomes excessive and Candida is forced to multiply to keep up with the excessive sugar. If a person’s insulin is unable to escort the excessive sugar out of the bloodstream, the sugar can’t get out and Candida keeps blooming. What keeps the insulin from escorting sugar out is the overconsumption of fat—the more fat in your diet, the less effective insulin is at getting sugar out of the bloodstream.

The long-term danger of Candida overgrowth is a compromised immune system that makes us vulnerable to almost every pathogen and disease known.

Unfortunately, most of us are still blinded by outdated myths of the past. Up until now, we have believed that eating too much sugar is what causes type 2 diabetes. However, as you will soon see, this is not the case.

According to Neal Barnard, MD, author of The Program for Reversing Diabetes, people with type 2 diabetes, or those at risk for diabetes, accumulate abnormal fat droplets inside the muscle cells, which in turn leads to insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance, the first stage of type 2 diabetes, occurs because the cells have become clogged with lipids, or fats; and insulin, the hormone that escorts glucose into the cells so it can be used for energy, cannot get into the cell and builds up in the bloodstream. He found that minimizing dietary fat, especially animal fat found in meat, eggs, and dairy, directly reduces or eliminates the fat deposits in the muscles.

In published research studies, Dr. Barnard concluded that a plant-based, low-fat vegan diet reduces insulin resistance, improves insulin sensitivity, and reduces elevated glucose levels.

Let’s explore yet another possible dietary fat and excessive sugar in the bloodstream scenario.

Up until now, we have called cancer, our nation’s most feared disease and leading cause of death, “a mystery.”

But what if there is a tie-in between the overconsumption of fat, excessive sugar in the bloodstream, acidosis, low oxygen levels, and cancer? What if cancer spawns out of a series of ecological breakdowns, with the end-result being a Candida infestation gone wild?

After decades of scientific and clinical research, researcher and oncologist Tullio Simoncini, MD, of Rome, Italy, says that genetics, the battle horse of modern oncology, is about to give up the horse—genetics is not the cause of cancer. He has discovered that “cancer is a fungus,” specifically, Candida albicans.

In his book, Cancer is a Fungus, Dr. Simoncini states, “My idea is that cancer doesn’t depend on mysterious causes such as genetic, immunological or auto-immunological as the official oncology proposes, but it comes down from a simple fungal infection, which is always present in the tissues of cancer patients, especially in terminal patients.”

For about 100 years, the fundamental theory behind cancer has been based on the hypothesis that it is a malfunctioning of the genes. This point of view implies that cancer is intracellular. Dr. Simoncini’s point of view however is that cancer is a fungal infection, and therefore an extra cellular phenomenon.

Dr. Simoncini is encouraging modern oncology researchers, who spend millions upon millions of dollars each year on their futile studies, to move cancer research in the study of microbiology (the study of microorganisms) in an attempt to solve the mysteries of cancer once and for all!

He says, “The evidence is clear: the cause of cancer is no longer a mystery and, in most cases, can be cured with a powerful antifungal agent that’s inexpensive and readily available.“

Sodium bicarbonate, unlike other anti-fungal remedies to which fungi can become immune, is extremely diffusible and retains its ability to penetrate cancer cells and tumors due to the speed at which the sodium bicarbonate disintegrates metastases’. This speed is what makes fungi’s adaptability impossible, rendering it defenseless.

Dr. Simoncini discovered that the sodium bicarbonate solution can be administered directly on tumors or by selecting specific arteries through which the solution is injected which subsequently dissolves cancer cells or tumors. Selectively administering sodium bicarbonate represents a very powerful anti-fungal weapon that is painless, leaves no after effects, and has very low risks. He found that it was possible to reach almost every organ with the sodium bicarbonate solution, resulting in a systemic treatment that is harmless, cheap, fast, and very effective.

For me, Dr. Simoncini’s findings conclude the tie-in between excessive sugar in the bloodstream due to too much dietary fat from animal foods and vegetable oil, the overgrowth of Candida, and the cause of cancer.

After all, water and oil do not mix!

Consider, once again, the death of Lake Erie. Like the overfeeding of phosphates into the lake, which caused the algae to overgrow, we overfeed our internal waterways with too many acidifying foods loaded with fat such as meat, eggs, and dairy, which in turn causes Candida/yeast to overgrow and oxygen levels to lower.

Like Lake Erie, if left unchecked, our internal waterways can become so polluted with oily sludge and the gaseous products of rot from mycotoxins (yeast toxins) and fermentation that the waters of our body become inflamed (catch on fire). This is when our natural cells that once swam within our watery terrain are now overtaken with Candida/yeast cells. And, as most of you know, yeast cells ferment sugar, and even faster with low heat (inflammation).

As far back as 1924, Dr. Otto Warburg, Doctor of Chemistry, who was twice Nobel laureate, reported in his research that cancer is caused by tumor cells generating energy by the breakdown of glucose into fermentation. He said, Cancer, above all diseases, has countless secondary causes. But even for cancer, there is only one prime cause. Summarized in a few words, the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar.

Much of Dr. Warburg’s original work was published in The Metabolism of Tumours and the New Methods of Cell Physiology. He wrote about oxygen’s relationship to the pH of cancer cells’ internal environment. He firmly believed fermentation to be the metabolic pathway of cancer cells, mostly due to hypoxia (low oxygen levels), lactic acid production (a by-product of fermentation), and elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels (yeast cells give off CO2 in their respiration).

Warburg demonstrated that all forms of cancer are characterized by two basic conditions: acidosis and a lack of oxygen. He stated that a lack of oxygen and acidosis are two sides of the same coin: where you have one you have the other. Higher pH (alkaline) means higher concentration of oxygen molecules and the absence of cancer cells while lower pH (acid) means lower concentrations of oxygen and the presence of cancer cells.

In his later years, Dr. Warburg was so convinced that disease resulted from an internal pollution and low oxygen levels that he became what some would call a health nut because he would eat only organically grown whole foods.

When frustrated by the lack of acceptance of his so-called far-out ideas, Warburg was known to quote a cliché to his colleagues that he attributed to Max Planck, honoree of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 for assisting in the advancement of Physics by his discovery of quantum energy: “Science doesn’t progress because scientists change their minds, but rather because scientists attached to erroneous views die and are then replaced.”

Nevertheless, the link between pH, cellular oxygen deprivation, and disease has been firmly established. Acids drive out oxygen. The more acid you are, the less oxygenated you are, the sicker you are. The more alkaline you are, the more oxygenated you are, the healthier you are.

Oxygen is the key to a vibrant, healthy life. This is because a sustainable alkaline environment replete with oxygen is a place where ecological breakdowns cannot exist.

Here’s what a few other highly acclaimed medical experts have to say about the health hazards of an acidic, low oxygen condition.

Dr. Sam Whang, in his book Reverse Aging, states, when blood has a pH of 7.3, it actually has 69.4 percent less oxygen than blood that has a perfect pH of 7.45.

W. F. Koch, MD, PhD, says, A cell that has not been starved of oxygen and has a perfect pH balance cannot become infected with cancer.

In 1933, William Howard Hay, MD, published his groundbreaking book, A New Health Era. After citing voluminous research, Dr. Hay concluded, All disease is caused by auto-intoxication (self-poisoning) due to acid accumulation in the body.

Dr. George W. Crile (1864–1943), the father of physiologic surgery, formally recognized as the first surgeon to have succeeded in a direct blood transfusion, and cofounder of the world-famous Cleveland Clinic, stated, There is no such thing as natural death. All deaths from so-called natural causes are merely the endpoint of progressive acid saturation.

John McDougall, MD, and author of numerous bestselling books, including The McDougall Plan: 12 Days to Dynamic Health says, Breast cancer is an environmental disease that has to do with the fats and synthetic chemicals in your diet and also, the lack of plant chemicals in your diet to protect you. While fatty foods are high in calories and excess calories promote the growth of cancer cells, vegetable fats, including “health-food” organic cold-pressed olive and flaxseed oil, suppress the immune system, thus encouraging cancer growth.

Noted German scientist and microbiologist Dr. Gunther Ederline (1872–1968), stated, Disease cannot survive in an alkaline state and total healing only takes place when and if the blood is restored to a normal, slightly alkaline pH.

Renowned heart specialist and Nobel Prize nominee Dr. Berthold Kern (1911–1995) was the first to discover that heart infarct (tissue death due to a local lack of oxygen) is caused by metabolic acidosis (over-acidity) and is nothing but a gigantic acid catastrophe. Dr. Kern’s remedy was the restoration of pH balance to the heart muscle.

Dr. Arthur C. Guyton, MD, author of The Textbook on Medical Physiology states, All chronic pain, suffering, and diseases are caused by a lack of oxygen (excess acidity at the cellular level).

Dr. Stephen Levine, renowned molecular biologist, geneticist, and author of Oxygen Deficiency states, A Concomitant to all Degenerative Illness states, In serious disease conditions we find low oxygen levels. Oxygen deficiency in our body’s tissues is an indicator for disease. Hypoxia, or lack of oxygen in the tissues, is the fundamental cause for all degenerative disease.

Ed McCabe, MD, and author of Flood Your Body with Oxygen: Therapy for Our Polluted World says, Giving our bodies a better ability to absorb and use oxygen is of prime importance in order to stay healthy, optimize performance, and for doctors to successfully treat disease. After all, your immune systems, energy systems, repair systems, digestive systems, and brain all run on lots and lots of oxygen. Amazingly, microbes, like most of the bacteria and viruses, can’t live long in active oxygen. Unfortunately, they don’t teach this in medical school!

In conclusion, the progression of what we have long called disease, is, in fact, a series of ecological breakdowns that occurs through the following stages:

(1) If you eat a diet high in acid foods full of fat such as meat, eggs, dairy, and vegetable oil (which is 100% fat), the more acid and full of oily sludge the waters of your body become; then, (2) The more oily your waters become, the more sugar builds up in your bloodstream; then, (3) The more sugar builds up in your bloodstream, the more Candida/yeast cells overgrow to feed and clean up the toxic threat; then, (4) The more Candida/yeast overgrows, the more build-up of gaseous products of rot from mycotoxins (yeast toxins) and fermentation occurs; then, (5) The more toxic and polluted the waters of your body become, the lower your oxygen levels become; then, (6) The lower your oxygen levels become, the sicker your cells become; then, (7) The more your body becomes a breeding ground for pathogenic bacteria.

The main point to keep in mind about the overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria is this: They are simply a part of natures clean up crew and if you feed them they will come!

EcoDiet Health Tip #2

Eat an organic plant-based, low-fat vegan diet and turn your environment crisis around. An ecologically pH balanced sustainable environment replete with oxygen is a place where ecological breakdowns cannot exist!