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There is little doubt that the universe started as light. It happens to have emerged as one of the most potent properties of life. In a sense, we are light! That’s not a New Age claim; that’s scientific fact. Biophotons are here to stay. Light is just part of the electromagnetic spectrum and we in turn are composed of electromagnetic energies. Energy, heat and light all come from this spectrum; today, every schoolkid knows that matter and energy are interchangeable. Voila! Light is life. It has always been curious to me that the whole of the electromagnetic spectrum is hostile to biological life… except light and heat (and even heat can be damaging to life). But not light!

There is little doubt that the universe started as light. It happens to have emerged as one of the most potent properties of life. In a sense, we are light! That’s not a New Age claim; that’s scientific fact. Biophotons are here to stay. Light is just part of the electromagnetic spectrum and we in turn are composed of electromagnetic energies. Energy, heat and light all come from this spectrum; today, every schoolkid knows that matter and energy are interchangeable. Voila! Light is life. It has always been curious to me that the whole of the electromagnetic spectrum is hostile to biological life… except light and heat (and even heat can be damaging to life). But not light!

No surprise there. Insurance actuaries have known for over half a century that obesity will shorten your life. They don’t wanna pay up; the study the odds in microscopic detail. But for me, now living in the USA, I’m astonished at how little this has been regarded and how estimates of the risk have been consistently lower than they should be. Obesity-related deaths stood at 5%; that was the official figure–till today! Now it’s 18%, according to a new study published online Aug. 15, 2013, in the American Journal of Public Health. That’s almost quadruple the previous estimate and much more believable.

No surprise there. Insurance actuaries have known for over half a century that obesity will shorten your life. They don’t wanna pay up; the study the odds in microscopic detail. But for me, now living in the USA, I’m astonished at how little this has been regarded and how estimates of the risk have been consistently lower than they should be. Obesity-related deaths stood at 5%; that was the official figure–till today! Now it’s 18%, according to a new study published online Aug. 15, 2013, in the American Journal of Public Health. That’s almost quadruple the previous estimate and much more believable.

We all love the metaphor of right and left brain thinking but I’ve been pointing out for years that it’s just not true. Everyone uses both sides, all the time. Women who speak (no, fill in your own joke here…) are using their left brain, not their right brain. Men who visualize how things could look are using their right brain, not their supposedly-masculine left brain. Nevertheless, there is widely held belief that people use one side of their brain more than the other, and that this influences their personality traits. For example, left-brained people are said to be linear, logical and detail-oriented, while right-brained people are creative, caring and thoughtful.

We all love the metaphor of right and left brain thinking but I’ve been pointing out for years that it’s just not true. Everyone uses both sides, all the time. Women who speak (no, fill in your own joke here…) are using their left brain, not their right brain. Men who visualize how things could look are using their right brain, not their supposedly-masculine left brain. Nevertheless, there is widely held belief that people use one side of their brain more than the other, and that this influences their personality traits. For example, left-brained people are said to be linear, logical and detail-oriented, while right-brained people are creative, caring and thoughtful.

Finally, we come to the newest and, if such a thing is possible, most outrageous and contentious theory of allergy and intolerance. That is not to say that it is unscientific, far from it; this model carries the merit of the very latest scientific understanding. That’s the problem: it is so far advanced that doctors still working in the stone age and unable to grasp the majority of mechanisms described in my past articles will have trouble coming to terms with this one. We now believe that at least some activity we call allergy or intolerance comes, not from the physical substance, but its characteristic coded molecular “signature”. To explain this, let me start by introducing a simple observation – startling, maybe – but quite simple. I have observed it many times, so have other alert open-minded physicians: occasionally a patient may become sick, simply being near or in the presence of their key allergen. This means they did not swallow it, breathe it or touch it in any way whatsoever. It does not mean the patient is neurotic and “afraid of their allergen” or reacting through a Pavlovian conditioned response; it happens even if the patient is unaware of being in the presence of their allergen.

Finally, we come to the newest and, if such a thing is possible, most outrageous and contentious theory of allergy and intolerance. That is not to say that it is unscientific, far from it; this model carries the merit of the very latest scientific understanding. That’s the problem: it is so far advanced that doctors still working in the stone age and unable to grasp the majority of mechanisms described in my past articles will have trouble coming to terms with this one. We now believe that at least some activity we call allergy or intolerance comes, not from the physical substance, but its characteristic coded molecular “signature”. To explain this, let me start by introducing a simple observation – startling, maybe – but quite simple. I have observed it many times, so have other alert open-minded physicians: occasionally a patient may become sick, simply being near or in the presence of their key allergen. This means they did not swallow it, breathe it or touch it in any way whatsoever. It does not mean the patient is neurotic and “afraid of their allergen” or reacting through a Pavlovian conditioned response; it happens even if the patient is unaware of being in the presence of their allergen.

No reference to allergy and environmental medicine could be complete without some reference to Hans Selye’s hypothesis of stress adaptation. It is something that environmental medicine doctors have taken very much to heart, because it seems to fit our daily observations and explains a great many of the phenomena we encounter. The fact that so much to heart, because it seems to fit our daily observations and explains a great many of the phenomena we encounter. The fact that so much experience matches the theory suggests that it is ‘true’. Hans Selye, a Viennese by birth who moved to Canada and practiced medicine in his adopted country, began with the observation that many people ill from different causes had similar symptoms. These were general symptoms, which seemed common to all afflictions, such as pallor, fatigue, loss of appetite, vague pains and a coated tongue. Selye, still a medical student, likened this to the ‘syndrome of being ill’ and he couldn’t’ understand why his teachers didn’t pay more attention to these symptoms: they were obviously important, since everybody got them, no matter the illness.

No reference to allergy and environmental medicine could be complete without some reference to Hans Selye’s hypothesis of stress adaptation. It is something that environmental medicine doctors have taken very much to heart, because it seems to fit our daily observations and explains a great many of the phenomena we encounter. The fact that so much to heart, because it seems to fit our daily observations and explains a great many of the phenomena we encounter. The fact that so much experience matches the theory suggests that it is ‘true’. Hans Selye, a Viennese by birth who moved to Canada and practiced medicine in his adopted country, began with the observation that many people ill from different causes had similar symptoms. These were general symptoms, which seemed common to all afflictions, such as pallor, fatigue, loss of appetite, vague pains and a coated tongue. Selye, still a medical student, likened this to the ‘syndrome of being ill’ and he couldn’t’ understand why his teachers didn’t pay more attention to these symptoms: they were obviously important, since everybody got them, no matter the illness.

Now we come to yet another model of health and disease, concerning the way food residues are dealt with by the gut. It is important to realize that the contents of the bowel are outside the body. If you imagine a piece of string entering at the mouth and emerging from the anus, you will readily see this is true. The defined space of the bowel (or lumen) contains a considerable immunological and toxic burden, including potentially allergenic food residues, waste toxins, food toxins (both natural toxins and artificially added man-made chemicals), bacteria, parasites and free radicals released by many processes taking place. Precisely because of our very intimate entanglement with this space, our bodies need to be protected from these deleterious substances.

Now we come to yet another model of health and disease, concerning the way food residues are dealt with by the gut. It is important to realize that the contents of the bowel are outside the body. If you imagine a piece of string entering at the mouth and emerging from the anus, you will readily see this is true. The defined space of the bowel (or lumen) contains a considerable immunological and toxic burden, including potentially allergenic food residues, waste toxins, food toxins (both natural toxins and artificially added man-made chemicals), bacteria, parasites and free radicals released by many processes taking place. Precisely because of our very intimate entanglement with this space, our bodies need to be protected from these deleterious substances.