What causes Chronic Degenerative Diseases?

The answer is actually quite simple, and very logical. I know this sounds like a bold statement to
open with, but I hope by the end of this article you will see why I have made such a claim.

It’s the Environment Stupid

Ok, ok I admit it, I stole that title from Bruce Lipton’s book “Biology of Belief”, but the answer to
what causes ALL chronic degenerative diseases (examples shown in Table 1) is environmental
stressors (shown is Table 2). We now know from cellular biology that the environment influences the
organism. So the theory of genetic determinism is well and truly dead, with some very few
exceptions.

Table 1: Example of Chronic Degenerative Disease

- Cancer
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Heart Disease

All Auto-immune conditions:

- Arthritis
- Lupus
- Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS)
- Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
- Parkinsons Disease
- Alzheimers Disease
- Allergies
- Gluten Sensitivity
- Etc

Table 2: Environmental stressors on the human organism

- Nutrition
- Circadian Rhythm
- Environmental Toxins
- Electro-magnetic Fields
- Mental/Emotional health/ Belief systems
- Movement Quality
- Exercise

Chronic Stress = Chronic Inflammation = Disease

When I say stress, I am talking about all the environmental stressors that I mentioned in table 2, not
just mental/emotion stress which is what comes to most people minds automatically. I use the word
stress as a more global term that encapsulates all the environmental stressors.

Now when these environmental stressors produce chronic stress to the system (again the system
here is referring to the human body), rather than help to nourish and heal the system, chronic
inflammation begins to build up in the system. So chronic stress = chronic inflammation. And when
this cycle gets prolonged, this leads to disease.

So how can these environment stressors cause chronic inflammation (Table 3)? They do so when
they are not within optimal requirements. So when we feed ourselves with poor nutrition, when we
have poor sleep patterns, when we are exposed to excessive environmental toxins, when we have
poor mental, emotional, spiritual health and have a poor outlook on life, and when are bodies don’t
get enough quality movement. These types of stressors are term “biological, and/or environmental
mis-matches”. This is a term I first heard from Dr Jack Kruse.

Table 3: How Environment Stressors can cause chronic inflammation

When you have:
- Poor Nutrition
- Poor Circadian Rhythm
- Excessive exposure to Environmental Toxins
- Excessive exposure to Electro-magnetic Fields
- Poor Mental/Emotional health/ Belief systems
- Poor Movement Quality
- No Exercise/ or Overtraining

Individuality unique stress reserves

Everyone has very individually unique stress reverses. By stress reverses I mean how much stress a
person can handle is very different from person to person due to a number of factors. Some people
just have stronger detoxification systems, stronger endocrine systems, and also the same situations
are perceived very differently from person to person, which is another way in which stress or the
perception of stress is unique from person to person.

So if two people are faced with the same stress, one may find the stress (again this stress could be
nutritional stress, sleep stress, a personal incident, etc) overwhelming, taxing this persons stress
reserves a lot, while the other person finds this stress no problem at all, and thus doesn’t diminish
their stress reserve in anyway.

Another thing to consider is you will get individuals who will have varying degrees of optimal
requirements of these environmental stressors. So you could get someone who has very good
nutritional habits, decent sleep, decent movement quality, adequate exercise, but is surrounded by
some environmental toxins, and has some emotional distress. The fact that some factors are within
decent requirements, help with not overtaxing the stress reserve as much, as would be the case if all
environmental stressors were mis-matches to the system (again human organism in this case).

Let’s look at each of these environmental stressors in more detail, starting with nutrition.

Nutrition

According to Dr. Ray Peat “nutrition is the most important environmental influence on the nature of
an organism (human body for our purpose here).
Now there are many debates out there about what is the most optimal nutritional lifestyle for
humans. The following are my current opinions on nutrition.

We are all biochemically unique

We humans are all biochemically unique, so to assume that one universal nutritional approach can
be applied to all human beings seems to be very foolish and illogical thinking. Not only will different
foods react differently from person to person, but different ratios and combinations of food will
react differently from person to person.

Also another important factor to bear in mind is that not only are we biochemically unique from
person to person, but we are also biochemically unique within ourselves. What I mean by this is that
are bodily requirements are always changing on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis depending
on what environmental stressors the body is having to adapt to.

Dr. Weston A. Price

The fact that we are all biochemically unique was seen by Weston A. Price when he travelled the
world over a period of a few years in the 1930’s and live with many different ethnic groups such the
following:

- The Swiss of The Loetschental Valley

- The Gaelic’s of Scotland
- The Eskimos
- The North American Indians
- The Melanesians
- The Polynesians
- African Tribes
- Australian Aborigines
- Torres Strait Islanders
- Ancient civilizations of Peru
- New Zealand Maori
- Peruvian Indians

All of these groups had very varied nutritional lifestyles, but the one underlying theme from all of
these populations is that all their food came from nature. There was no processed or
commercialized food within their diets, what Price called “the food of modern commerce”.

Another critical thing that Price observed was that when “western man” came into contact with
these primitive tribes and through this contact introduce his “food of modern commerce” to these
primitive tribes, their (the primitive tribes) health deteriorated rapidly. Price gave the title of
“modernized” to these primitive tribes that began to stray away from their traditional foods and
replace with the processed food of “western man.”
These” modernized” primitives health as I said above deteriorated rapidly, as too the health and
vitality of their off-spring. Price was a dentist by profession and what really interested him was the
health and development of these primitive tribes’ teeth and dental arches. What began to happen to
the “modernized” primitives was that their teeth became rampant with dental cavities and tooth
decay (which was extremely rare among the tradition primitives), and thus their health suffered
seriously. Their off-spring was now being born into the world with poorly formed dental arches,
facial structures, and comprised immunity.

Price also noted that not only were the primitive tribes on traditional foods physically more robust,
but they also displayed greater mental and spiritual health. This is also something he saw decline
with the introduction of western food into the “modernized” primitives lifestyles.

So we can see from Dr Prices’ research that nutrition is a huge environmental influence to our health
and well-being. All of this work can be found he Dr Prices outstanding book, “Nutrition and Physical
Degeneration”.

Dr. Francis Pottenger Junior – Pottengers Cats

Dr. Francis Pottenger Junior did an outstanding piece of research with cats and nutrition.
This is from Wikipedia:

Meat Study
In one study, one group of cats was fed a diet of two-thirds raw meat, one-third raw milk, and cod-
liver oil while the second group was fed a diet of two-thirds cooked meat, one-third raw milk, and
cod-liver oil. The cats fed the all-raw diet were healthy while the cats fed the cooked meat diet
developed various health problems.

▪ By the end of the first generation the cats started to develop degenerative diseases and became
quite lazy.
▪ By the end of the second generation, the cats had developed degenerative diseases by mid-life
and started losing their coordination.
▪ By the end of the third generation the cats had developed degenerative diseases very early in
life and some were born blind and weak and had a much shorter life span. Many of the third
generation cats couldn't even produce offspring. There was an abundance of parasites and
vermin while skin diseases and allergies increased from an incidence of five percent in normal
cats to over 90 percent in the third generation of deficient cats. Kittens of the third generation
did not survive six months. Bones became soft and pliable and the cats suffered from adverse
personality changes. Males became docile while females became more aggressive.
▪ The cats suffered from most of the degenerative diseases encountered in human medicine and
died out totally by the fourth generation.
At the time of Pottenger's Study the amino acid taurine had been discovered but had not yet been
identified as an essential amino acid for Cats. Today many cats thrive on a cooked meat diet where
taurine has been added after cooking. The deficient diets lacked sufficient taurine to allow the cats
to properly form protein structures and resulted in the health effects observed. Pottenger himself
concluded that there was likely an "as yet unknown" protein factor that may have been heat
sensitivity.

Milk Study
In another study, dubbed the "Milk Study," the cats were fed 2/3 milk and 1/3 meat. All groups were
fed raw meat with different groups getting raw, pasteurized, evaporated, sweetened condensed or
raw metabolized vitamin D milk. The cats on raw milk were the healthiest while the rest exhibited
varying degrees of health problems similar to the previous cooked meat study.
This particular Pottenger cat study has been cited by advocates of raw milk as evidence that it is
likely healthier for humans than pasteurized milk.

Dr Francis Pottenger Senior – The Autonomic Nervous system

Dr Francis Pottenger Senior (Father to Pottenger Junior), was a neuro-physiologist who is renowned
for some ground-breaking work with the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).

From Cancer – Curing the Incurable by Dr William Donald Kelley:

“The autonomic nervous system is that part of the brain and nervous system that carries on the
functions of the body that we have very little or no conscious control over. The autonomic nervous
system controls such activities as our heartbeat, respiration and reflexes (like what happens when a
person sits on a tack).

The autonomic nervous system regulates the basic life-sustaining functions of the body such as the
turning on and off of glands and organs, maintaining the acid/alkaline balance of the blood, saliva,
and urine, digestion of food, balancing glandular functions, turning the cells on and off, and
stimulating and retarding the body and its parts.”

The ANS is divided into two branches, Sympathetic and Parasympathetic.

From Wikipedia:

“The ANS is classically divided into two subsystems: the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS)
and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) which operate independently in some functions and interact
co-operatively in others. In many cases the two have "opposite" actions where one activates a
physiological response and the other inhibits it. An older simplification of the sympathetic and
parasympathetic nervous systems as "excitory" and "inhibitory" was overturned due to the many
exceptions found. A more modern characterisation is that the sympathetic nervous system is a "quick
response mobilising system" and the parasympathetic is a "more slowly
activated dampening system"

Another common explanation of these two branches of the ANS is:

The Sympathetic System is called – The “Fight or Flight” system

The Parasympathetic is called – The “Rest and Digest” system
What Dr Pottenger Snr discovered was that humans seem to have a dominance of a one branch of
the ANS to the other. Some people were more sympathetic dominant, while some were para-
sympathetic dominant. He also noticed that different nutrients stimulated and inhibited either sides
of the ANS. This work is recorded in his classic book “Symptoms of Visceral Disease”.

Dr William Donald Kelley

The story of Dr William Donald Kelley is an unbelievable tale. Dr Kelley was a dentist who from all
accounts had a thriving business, and was fairly well off. Kelley was diagnosed with pancreatic
cancer and giving little to no hope of surviving as this is a deadly form of cancer, or so it seems
within conventional medicine.

Kelley’s mother put her son on what could be describe as a Gerson (with a few exceptions, like raw
goats yogurt and some eggs) type nutritional therapy protocol for treatment of his cancer. He
started to regain his health, but wasn’t cured by any stretch. After some time his pancreas’ ability to
make the enzymes needed to digest the nutrients of his food diminished to the point where he was
unable to breakdown, digest, and assimilate his nutrition.

Dr Kelley became worried as he realized that if he couldn’t breakdown, digest, and assimilate his
nutrition he knew he would succumb to his illness. He then decided to get a pancreatic enzyme
supplement to help with the digestion of his food.

What began to happen as a result of taking the pancreatic enzyme supplement was that Dr Kelley
could feel his tumours beginning to diminish in size, but he would feel terribly ill when this was
taking place. As soon as he would stop taking the pancreatic enzyme supplement he would feel
better, or less ill, but his tumours would begin to get larger in size again. Dr Kelley was at first
confused by this, but then began to realize that, what was happening was that the pancreatic
enzymes’ were actually attacking and killing the cancerous tissue in his body. The fact that he felt
terrible when taking the pancreatic enzyme supplement was due to the toxic dead-off of the
cancerous tissue within his body.

The fact that the pancreatic enzymes seemed to kill off the cancerous tissue made Dr Kelley curious
and do some research to see if there was any known science on pancreatic enzymes having “anti-
cancerous” effects? Enter Dr John Beard.
Dr John Beard

Dr John Beard was a Manchester born embryologist, who spent most of his academic career at
Edinburgh University. Beard had made popular, the theory, that cancerous tissue behaves exactly
like the growth of trophoblastic tissue that eventually matured into the placenta in pregnant
mammals. Dr Beard hypothesized that if he could discover the mechanism which turned
trophoblastic tissue from an invasive, primitive, and undifferentiated tissue (which is exactly how
cancer growth occurs) into the mature placenta he may found something that could potentially cure
cancer.

What Dr Beard went onto discover was that the day that an embryo began to produce its own
pancreatic enzymes the trophoblast would mature into the mature and differentiated placenta.
Dr Beard also spoke about primitive germs cells (what we now know are adult stem cells) being
“mistakenly” relocated in somatic tissue instead of the primitive yolk sac of the developing fetus. It is
these germs cells (within the somatic tissue) that if given the specific environmental signals can
developed into a trophoblastic growth that may lead to the formation of a cancerous tumour
growth. This is what is meant when it is said that every one of us has cancer cells within our bodies.

Dr Beard proposed that a lack of pancreatic enzyme production could allow a cancerous tumour to
developed, as it is these enzymes (namely trypsin and chymotrypsin) that prevent these mutated
germ cells from developing into a form of cancer.

This is why vegan/vegetarian dietary protocols are used so much for cancer, because the over
consumption of animal protein can lead to a deficiency in these pancreatic enzymes to do their
functional role in killing off mutated germ cells, by having to use so much of them in the digestive
process of excess protein consumption.

Back to Dr Kelly

Dr Kelley then came to another logical conclusion within his treatment protocol. He needed to
concurrently detoxify his body while the tumour was being killed off by his nutrition, supplements,
and especially by the pancreatic enzymes’. Dr Kelley decided to introduce coffee enemas to his
treatment regime to help detoxify the body.

Dr Kelley overcame his cancer and went onto treatment many cancer patients. Initially he just used
the protocol that saved his life with everyone, which was:

- A vegetarian style diet

- Nutritional Supplements
- Pancreatic enzyme supplement
- Coffee Enemas

Now for the most part most patients improved and recovered, but there was to be one more big “ah
ha” moment for Dr Kelley with regards to his treatment protocol.
One day a young lady came to Dr Kelley looking for some help with her extremely sensitive allergies.
It was said about this particular lady that she was so sensitive to iodine that she would go into
anaphylactic shock if she came with 10 miles of the sea. Her nutrition was only limited to a number
of foods due to serve food intolerances and allergies.

So Dr Kelley put her on the protocol that he used with everyone. The vegetarian based diet, specific
nutritional supplementation, the enzymes, and the enemas, and she got a lot better for the first 6
months or so. But then she began to deteriorate once again, and rapidly so. She actually became so
sick that she was bed-ridden.

Dr Kelley became obsessed with why the protocol was failing her? He tried many, many different
things within the protocol to try and improve her condition, but to no avail. He came to a conclusion
after everything he had tried that the only thing he had not given this lady nutritionally was red
meat!

Dr Kelley rang this young lady’s mother and told to get grass-fed organic red meat from a local
source and feed it raw to her daughter. As bewildered as the mother was, she eventually agreed and
went and purchased the red meat. Within 24 hours of introducing the raw red meat the young lady
was coming back around, so much so that she was actually able to get out of bed. Dr Kelley of course
was stunned; but concluded that this young lady needed to continue to eat the raw red meat
numerous times throughout the day to help her regain her health which it did.

Dr Kelley went away and did some more research in the hope of finding some information that could
explain what he was seeing with this patient. It was from this research he found the work that Dr
Francis Pottenger Snr had done on the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). Finally Dr Kelley felt he
now had something that may be able to explain what it was he was seeing with this patient.

Dr Kelley came to realize from his research that the Autonomic Nervous System is the master regular
of our metabolism, and that every one of us have a unique Autonomic Nervous System. He also
concluded that a chronic imbalance with the ANS was a major contributing factor to chronic
degenerative diseases.

From this research Dr Kelley began to categorize his patients into what he termed “metabolic types”.
Like Pottenger Snr before him, Dr Kelley began to realize that different patients had different ANS
dominance. Dr Kelley divided his patients into 3 categories:

Sympathetic Dominant
Parasympathetic Dominant
Balanced Dominant

Dr Kelley the devised 10 different nutritional protocols from these 3 categories:

Sympathetic Dominant: 3 protocols
Parasympathetic Dominant: 3 protocols
Balance Dominant: 4 protocols

Dr Kelley arranged them as follows:

1. Group A, which includes the Sympathetic Dominant Metabolic Types: One, Four, and Six.
2. Group B, which includes the Parasympathetic Dominant Metabolic Types: Two, Five, and
Seven.
3. Group C, which includes the Balanced Sympathetic/Parasympathetic Metabolic Types:
Three, Eight, Nine and Ten.

Dr Kelley used an extensive questionnaire system that would determine a person’s metabolic type.

A very brief summary of the 3 dominant types and 10 protocols are given below:

Group A: Vegetarian Types – Sympathetic Dominant

Type 1:

- Closest to being purely Sympathetic Dominant

- Needs very little to no animal products at all
- Can live entirely on fruits, vegetables and nuts
- Could live nearly off 100% raw food

Type 4:

- Strong Sympathetic but not a as strong as type 1

- Usually have ancestors from Italy, Spain, Israel, Greece, etc
- Needs some animal products such as fish, chicken, eggs and unpasteurized goat cheese
several times a week
- Does well with all vegetable

Type 6:

- Combination of Types 1 and 4, but has horrible metabolism

- Very poor at absorbing and assimilating nutrients
- Needs 60% of food cooked
- Needs far more supplemental nutritional support than type 1 and 4

Nutritional support - Sympathetic Dominant

For nutritional support, Sympathetic Dominant Metabolizers most often need: Vitamin D; Vitamin K;
Ascorbic Acid; Biotin; Folic Acid; Vitamins B1, B2 and B6; PABA; Niacin; Potassium; Magnesium;
Manganese; Zinc; Chromium; Hydrochloric Acid; Pancreatic Enzymes and Amino Acids. Each of the
vegetarian Types (One, Four and Six) needed these supplements, but each type needs different
amounts and different ratios.
Group B: Carnivore Types – Parasympathetic Dominant

Type 2:

- Closest to purely Parasympathetic Dominant

- Needs meat up to 14 ounces a day, preferably beef.
- Has little or no energy unless they eat meat.
- Does not do well on fruit and vegetables alone
- Prefers root vegetables when having to eat vegetables
- Should limit B vitamin intake and potassium
- Usually has ancestors from Northern Europe

Type 5:

- Strong Parasympathetic but not a as strong as type 2

- Needs meat to feel good, but less often, perhaps 2-3 times a week.
- Can tolerate a wider variety of food

Type 7:

- A cross between Types 2 and 5 but with a horrible metabolism.

- Type 7 metabolizers are the sickly, weak, inefficient parasympathetic metabolizers
- Difficult to maintain adequate nutrition in their cells
- Needs far more supplemental nutritional support than type 2 and 5
- Needs to detoxify adequately

Nutritional support - Parasympathetic Dominant

Parasympathetic dominant metabolizers most often need such nutritional support as: Vitamins E
and B-12; Niacinamide, Pantothenic Acid, Choline, Inositol, Calcium, Phosphorus, Calcium Ascorbate,
Bioflavonoid Complex, Zinc and Ribonucleic Acid. These metabolizers should eat at bedtime enough
to carry them through the night. They should not eat leafy green vegetables or take large quantities
of the B vitamins.

Group C: Balanced Types – Balanced Dominant

Type 3:

- Only absorbs 15% of what he or she eats

- Feels so bad that they often wish they were dead
- Very difficult to get adequate nutrition to the cells
- Must take in food that is easily digested
- Needs a lot supplemental nutritional support

Type 8:
 - ANS has a wide range of adaptability
- Can eat and benefit from a wide variety of foods and supplements

Type 9:

- Both Branches of ANS work equally well

- Needs 70% cooked food in diet
- Hates raw food.

Type 10:

- Super-efficient metabolizer
- Can eat a wide variety of foods and supplements
- Needs very little food and sleep yet feels terrific

Nutritional support – Mixed Dominant

Mixture of the above protocols for sympathetic and parasympathetic types

John Berardi - Samatotyping for individualised Nutritional Protocols

John Berardi of Precision Nutrition likes to use body types (samtotypes) to individualize nutritional
protocols.

The samtotypes are as follows:

- Ectomorph
- Mesomorph
- Endomorph

The following is adapted from John Berardi

Ectomorph

Ectomorphs are thin, with smaller bone structures and thinner limbs. Think of a typical endurance
athlete. And they have a few key features that affect their response to food.

• Their engine speed is set to “high revving”. They tend to be thyroid- and sympathetic nervous
system-dominant with either a higher output or higher sensitivity to catecholamines like
epinephrine and norepinephrine. They typically have a fast metabolic rate.

• They’re high-energy. They’re often fidgeters and pacers. They tend to burn off excess calories
with near-constant movement throughout the day.
• They tolerate carbs well. These are the rare folks who can seem to eat cookies with impunity.

I types therefore generally do best with more carbohydrates in the diet, along with a moderate
protein and lower fat intake. So that’s what we recommend: more healthy carbs and less fat with a
moderate amount of protein.

A nutrient distribution for this body type might be around 55% carbs, 30% protein, and 15% fat. (But
don’t drive yourself crazy with the math. Just think “higher carbs and lower fat.”)

Mesomorph

Mesomorphs have a medium sized bone structure and athletic body, and if they’re active, they
usually have a considerable amount of lean mass. Many explosive athletes like wrestlers and
gymnasts fit these criteria.

• Their bodies are designed to be powerful machines. Excess calories often go to lean mass and
dense bones.

• They tend to be testosterone and growth hormone dominant.

• Thus, they can usually gain muscle and stay lean easily.

Mesomorphs therefore generally do best on a mixed diet, with balanced carbohydrates, proteins,
and fats.

So that’s what we recommend a nutrient distribution for this body type might be around 40%
carbohydrate, 30% protein, and 30% fat. (Again, don’t drive yourself crazy with the math. Just
envision a roughly balanced mix of all three macronutrients.)

Endomorph

Endomorphs have a larger bone structure with higher amounts of total body mass and fat mass.
Football linemen, powerlifters, and throwers are typically endomorphs.
• Their engine speed is set to “idle”. They tend to be parasympathetic nervous system dominant.
Unlike ectomorphs, endomorphs are built for solid comfort, not speed.

• They’re naturally less active. Where the ectomorphs tend to burn off excess calories with near
constant movement, excess calories in endomorphs do not seem to cause that same increase in
expenditure. This means that excess calories are more likely to be stored as fat.

• They typically have a slower metabolic rate and generally don’t tolerate carbohydrates as well,
particularly if they are sedentary.

Endomorphs therefore generally do best on a higher fat and protein intake with carbohydrate intake
being lower and properly timed (e.g., mostly after exercise). So that’s what we recommend: more fat
and protein, less carbohydrate.

A nutrient distribution for this body type might be around 25% carbs, 35% protein, and 40% fat.
Again no math gymnastics. Just think higher fats and protein, lower carbs.

So as you can see nutrition is far more complex than some standard food pyramid ;-)

I will hopefully get some articles together on the other environmental influences over the next few
months.
References:
Biology Beyond Belief - Bruce Lipton
The Bond - Lynn McTaggart
The Field - Lynn McTaggart
Dr Jack Kruse – www.jackkruse.com
Lights Out - TS Wiley and Brent Formby
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration – Weston A Price
Symptoms of Visceral Disease - Dr Francis Pottenger Senior
Pottengers Cats - Dr Francis Pottenger Junior
Trophoplast and the Origins of Cancer – Dr Nicholas Gonzalez
Cancer - Curing the Incurable - Dr William Donald Kelley
Dr John Berardi – Precision Nutrition