Caution- Living Systems are Complex Systems (Huh?)

Why there cannot be a RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) for vitamin D and why genes aren’t the answer- an all in one, sort of short, rant.

There is a constant pressing sense the discovery of the “secret of life” is just around the corner and discovery of this ‘secret’ will give us all disease and pain-free eternal life. We seem to be convinced that the scientists, researchers, or alternative health researchers/practitioners (depending on our world-view) looking for ‘the secret’ will soon find it, or have found it but we just don’t know it yet. As we have yet to conquer the common cold perhaps we need a more realistic way of looking at things. Life is dynamic, not static. The very ‘essence’ of life is that it is constantly changing. The earth spins around on its axis while moving around the sun as the sun moves through space and we move about the earth. Internally cells are constantly being born as old cells are dieing. The chemicals of life move in and out and through our cells moment by moment, second by second.' Life is MOVEMENT in response to never ending change. Life may be eternal, though the history of earth makes that doubtful, but man is not. While certain academics attempt to sell DNA as the secret to life (though DNA is not living and cannot be made to be alive) or stem cells as key to cure of all diseases or a source of easy body repair more thoughtful scientists draw quite different conclusions based on more realistic data. Their conclusions don’t sell all that well as they don’t offer predictable outcomes or eternal life.

But the facts can help us deal realistically with the body we have been given, now. Buying (or even believing in) a new drug or supplement that will purportedly lead to some utopian longevity is expensive in more ways than cash. Believing in magic (alternative or biotech) may cause you ignore warnings and signals suggesting things need changing now; changes that might really make a difference in your life today. Eternal life, in a body, is no where in sight, ever, for some very provable reasons. Life in all forms is comprised of interacting, constantly changing, non-linear complex systems.' The nature of living systems is that they are not ‘completed’ but emerging, endlessly. How they emerge is altered by any number of other complex non-linear systems both inside and outside the living system. While calculated outcomes can be ‘suggestive’ they are not now nor ever will be guaranteed. Each bit of life is somewhat like every other bit and yet not alike at all. '

From It Ain’t Necessarily So edited by Richard Lewonton, Chapter 5 Not in Our Genes (with Steven P.R. Rose and Leon J. Kamin, pg 147

"…it takes more than DNA to make a living organism. I once heard one of the world’s leaders in molecular biology say, in the opening address of a scientific congress, that if he had a large enough computer and the complete DNA sequence of an organism he could compute the organism, by which he meant totally describe its anatomy, physiology, and behavior. But that is wrong. Even the organism does not compute itself from its DNA. A living organism, at any moment in its life, is the unique consequence of a developmental history that results from the interactions of and determination by internal and external forces. The external forces, what we usually think of as “environment,” are themselves partly a consequence of the activities of the organism itself as it produces and consumes the conditions of its own existence. Organisms do not find the world in which they develop. They make it. Reciprocally, the internal forces are not autonomous, but act in response to the external. Part of the internal chemical machinery of a cell is only manufactured when external conditions demand it…"

When we interact with our environment we change it and are changed by it. Our genes may tweak the way we interact or respond but they do not create either our internal or external realities. It (life) really isn’t in our genes. It’s not in our proteins either. There is little evidence genetic engineering will prevent disease and it has the potential to create more unusual or devastating conditions than those it attempts to ‘correct’. Stem cell research faces the same inevitable complexity with proven inability to control outcomes. Why is this all so difficult? Just one small example: Your brain contains some 10,000,000,000 (10 billion) cells making some 13,000,000,000,000 (13 trillion) connections with each other, just your brain, not your entire nervous system or muscles or skin or other tissues and organs. Healthy communication between all of your cells, and your cells’ communication with your environment, and your action in and upon your body and environment, all are players in your state of health and vitality. Not one of the players stays in the same place or even in the same ‘state’ for any length of time. Everywhere there is movement and change.

Nutrition- An Integrated Approach Third Edition Pike and Brown Chapter 9 pg 295

"…All cells are units separated from their environment by a membrane. This is a barrier whose presence determines the shape and encloses the substance of the cell. Despite the variability and potential hostility of the outside environment, it is the membrane on which the constancy of the internal chemistry of the cell is dependent. …mass invasion of potentially toxic materials or rejection of essential nutrients can lead to cellular death by asphyxiation, hydration, desiccation, poisoning, starvation, or other equally effective means…

A cell in equilibrium with its environment is a dead cell..."

Fundamental attributes of a living cell (or living system) include constant, selective movement within and without, and the ability to prevent the establishment of an equilibrium.

Life, for humans, when expressed in its fullness is very much like ‘dancing on the head of a pin’. It requires keeping balanced within a moving object (your body) that is constantly changing shape, content, direction and speed next to other moving, changing living things on a moving object (earth) that is constantly changing shape and content. Earth’s movement, direction and speed, remains somewhat constant, BUT always moving. If you feel like you are spinning, good. My point is made. Life requires food. Food sustains life. Food that sustains life comes from life. Only life can feed life. Food provides the elements that compose the human body and the elements that provide fuel and flame for the energy we need to keep moving. But life is more than food. Man is made to move.

Movement is a significant attribute of living organisms. A hint from the universe, when movement stops it signifies death. Life IS movement and disequilibrium.

def. Machine: any mechanical or electrical device that transmits or modifies energy to perform or assist in the performance of human tasks

What does any of this have to do with vitamin D or my health?

Essential elements of health and life include light, air, water, food, friends, environment, work, and exercise. Some necessary elements may get lost as diets and lifestyles change dramatically within a few generations. While looking to science to cure our ills we may overlook these essential elements and thereby suffer harm. Certainly sunlight and vitamin D fit this profile.

Sun avoidance, removing the fat and skin from fresh caught fish, overall eating fewer fish, and altering the habits of animal husbandry create significant losses in sources of vitamin D.

Vitamin D has receptors on the plasma membrane as well as the nucleus of many cells. Vitamin D is considered to be a member of the steroid hormone family.

def. hormone (from Greek horman - "to set in motion") is a chemical messenger from one cell (or group of cells) to another. All multicellular organisms produce hormones including plants.

Vitamin D, like the other steroid hormones, has genomic functions. It acts upon the receptors designed for it within living cells. Depending on the balance' of all of the other hormone-messengers (dancing partners) on receptors of any given cell at any given time, instructions are transmitted to stop making something or start making something or make more or less of something.

Vitamin D does not work alone. Cells containing receptors for vitamin D also contain receptors for other steroid hormones including vitamin A derived RAR and RXR, thyroid, and estrogen. Calcium, which plays a significant role in cell-cell messaging, also interacts with vitamin D. Abundance or lack of vitamin D alter vitamin D receptors.

By conversation (exchanging information) with other hormone-messengers and signaling proteins vitamin D helps decide what happens next. The absence, presence, relative excess or relative deficiency of any given hormone-messenger will send DIFFERENT instructions determining what happens next in that cell.

Some scientists, from the earliest beginnings of the study of our physical and natural world, believed one could ‘know’ a thing by tearing it apart and determining its ‘elements’. The goal has been to reduce the studied organism or disease to its most elemental parts. Finding the atom has not brought us even one step closer to understanding ‘life’.

When scientists use the dissection (tear into and examine the parts) approach it reduces ‘variables’, those differences that confound outcomes. The goal is to make the object more understandable. Unfortunate for the scientists, variables are exactly what makes life living.

def. reductionism:noun, a theory that all complex systems can be completely understood in terms of their components; the analysis of complex things into simpler constituents

from Lifelines Life Beyond the Gene Steven Rose pg 79

"…But living systems are not simple, they involve many interacting variables. Parameters are not fixed; properties are non-linear. And the living world is highly non-uniform. Reductionist methodology is helpful in chemistry, say, because (so far as is known) the chemical world is the same everywhere. In the living world, the exception is nearly always the rule. So if one is not careful, the simplifying constraints that the methodology offers soon cease to be helpful support to theory, and instead become straitjackets. The Zuckerman trap… awaits us if we are not careful to remember that what happens in the test-tube may be the same, the opposite of, or bear no relationship at all to what happens in the living cell, still less the living organism in its environment…."''

DNA does not inevitably determine disease or outcome. Neither does vitamin D or any other hormone or nutrient or protein or chemical.

'It is the elements gathered for the conversation, the time of day, the season, the latitude, the longitude, the mood, the meal, RELATIONSHIPS that determine outcomes. There it is, outcomes are determined by and through the relationships of living things with other living and non-living things, our daily, personal and intimate relationships with all things, internal and external.

There is no test nor will there ever be a test to know what you will die of or what diseases you will get or avoid (with limited exceptions of some specific genetic diseases). What is fascinating is that some very learned academics suggest differently, even though their colleagues continue to disprove any theory of genetic determinism.

We have choices (within limits but perhaps fewer limits than we may imagine)- about what we eat and drink, how and where we live, whether or not we exercise, who and what we love, what we choose to think about and even how we feel about all these things (avoiding anger and hatred and developing a positive attitude and forgiveness counts). In our daily lives these simple choices will have more effect on the outcome of our lives than all scientific knowledge distilled and swallowed whole.

No one can decide for you what will make your life's journey __________. What goes in the blank? I can think of many things. Most of them are for the moment, here and gone. Lovely, joyous, thrilling, satisfying, fulfilling, peaceful, courageous, happy, content, exciting, productive.

For me the blank would be ‘useful’. That is what I most want from my life, to be useful. A healthy body and mind helps me be more useful and stay useful longer.

When evaluating any diet, supplement, medication, lifestyle, or relationship, consider equally the implications of ‘dancing on the head of a pin’ and the importance of disequilibrium.

'def. disequilibrium- noun:'' loss of equilibrium attributable to an unstable situation in which some forces outweigh others

'Life is, by its very nature, unstable, unequal, vibrant, moving, exciting, dangerous, insecure. Like the sea, it is never still. There are no guarantees. Your dance must be constantly changing, moment to moment, to safely navigate your life’s journey. Keep dancing. Maintain moderation in all things, be sensible in exercise, food, drink, supplements, fears, passions, sunlight and friends.'

Does this feed me

Gently search in your diet, environment, work, thoughts, feelings and relationships for those things that are of sensible use to you, having recognizable value.

• Is something missing

• Is this vital

• Is this toxic

• Do I have too much

• Do I have enough

• Does this poison me

• Does this heal me

Find your voice, your music, and your partners.
Trust the Still Small Voice that gently reminds you of the wonder of it all; of the wonder of you; of the wonder of life.

Books I Love:
Lessons From The Living Cell- The Limits Of Reductionism. Stephen Rothman, Mcgraw Hill
It Ain't Necessarily So- The Dream Of The Human Genome And Other Illusions. Second Edition Richard Lewontin, New York Review Books
Lifelines- Life Beyond The Genes' Steven Rose, Oxford
The End Of Certainty- Time Chaos And The New Laws Of Nature Ilya Prigogine, Free Press
Sync-The Emerging Science Of Spontaneous Order Steven Strogatz, Hyperion