Welcome to Eternity Medicine
NEW REINVENTING MEDICINE
Lynn Margulis, while at Harvard in the 1960s, elegantly proposed a shared phylogenetic history between bacteria and mitochondria; this relationship has since become a cornerstone of modern cellular biology. Yet, an interesting facet of the interaction between the microbiome and mitochondria has been mostly ignored, that of the systems biology relationship that underpins host health and longevity. The mitochondria are descendants of primordial aerobic pleomorphic bacteria (likely genus Rickettsia) that entered (literally and functionally) into a mutualistic partnership with ancient anaerobic microbes (likely Archaea). A stable symbiosis was established, given the metabolic versatility of the early mitochondria, which were capable of providing energy with or without oxygen, whereas nutrient gathering was the assumed responsibility of the host.
While microbial relationships with single-cell protists must have occurred in the past, as they occur today, the evolution of multicellular organisms generated a new framework of symbiosis with the microbial world, taking the ancient partnership to an entirely new level. Cell-cell communication between microbes and single-cell protists was augmented through multicellularity to allow distant communication between the host cells and the microbiome, resulting in the development of complex metabolic relationships and an immune system to manage these interactions. It is important to recognize that this endosymbiotic relationship occurred about 2 billion years ago before any life as we know it occurred – plants developed only about 500 million years ago, insects about 350 million years ago, and Hominids, our ancestors, showed up just 4 million years ago, and Archaic Homo sapiens turned up just 200,000 years ago. Homo Sapiens Sapiens occurred just 50,000 years ago with more advanced tools, language, and social behavior.
A recent study in Nature (8th Feb 2024) provides a very interesting hypothesis. This study titled “A break in mitochondrial endosymbiosis” as a basis for inflammatory diseases, published by Prof. Michael Murphy from the University of Cambridge. The abstract says it all:
“Mitochondria retain bacterial traits due to their endosymbiotic origin, but host cells do not recognize them as foreign because the organelles are sequestered. However, the regulated release of mitochondrial factors into the cytosol can trigger cell death, innate immunity, and inflammation. This selective breakdown in the 2-billion-year-old endosymbiotic relationship enables mitochondria to act as intracellular signaling hubs. Mitochondrial signals include proteins, nucleic acids, phospholipids, metabolites, and reactive oxygen species, which have many modes of release from mitochondria, and of decoding the cytosol and nucleus. Because these mitochondrial signals probably contribute to the homeostatic role of inflammation, dysregulation of these processes may lead to autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
A potential reason for the increased incidence of these diseases may be changes in mitochondrial function and signaling in response to such recent phenomena as obesity, dietary changes, and other environmental factors. Focusing on the mixed heritage of mitochondria therefore leads to predictions for future insights, research paths, and therapeutic opportunities.”
Thus, whereas mitochondria can be considered “the enemy within” the cell, evolution has used this strained relationship in intriguing ways, with increasing evidence pointing to the recent failure of endosymbiosis being critical for the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases.
This paper clearly demonstrates how the Microbiome and Inflammation (Immune System) are linked by the Mitochondria, and that this originates from Nutrient Sensing. These 4 Hallmarks I believe are the primary cause of most of our chronic diseases of civilization that need to be prevented by reimagining what we humans should eat and drink.
Primary Hallmarks
- Inflammation : Chronic inflammation (as distinct from acute inflammation, which is mostly a healing reaction) is often present for years and is seen in most chronic disease due primarily to “insulin resistance” from poor nutrition, environmental toxins, and chronic stress. Metabolic inflammation (also known as "Meta-inflammation,") causes chronic activation of macrophages, which alters the body's balance of inflammatory cells. Immune cells react abnormally, and the auto-immune response is increased, leading to even more destruction of healthy cells and tissues. Mitochondria are key regulators of inflammation and depend on a healthy diet and microbiome in order to respond appropriately, as shown in the following diagram.
- Mitochondrial Dysfunction
- Microbiome
- Nutrient Sensing
Secondary Hallmarks
- Cellular Senescence
- Stem Cell Exhaustion
- Genomic Instability
- Autophagy
- Altered Cell Communication
- Epigenetic Alterations
- Loss of Proteostasis
- Telomere Attrition
Eternity Medicine offers a single longevity program that can be implemented in a doctor’s clinic or can be given as a Telehealth program remotely.
The Longevity Program first targets the Primary Hallmarks of Aging and then all of the 8 Secondary Hallmarks of Aging. By lowering your Biological Age by just 7 years, you lower your risk of all chronic disease by more than 50%—increasing both your Healthspan and Lifespan.
Depending on our nutrition, the Microbiome and Mitochondria communicate and interact both locally within the cell and systemically within the organism. This ultimately interacts with our immune system, and moderates inflammation causing health or disease. This signaling function is at the center of both physical and mental disease and determines our Healthspan and Lifespan.
The Solution For ERA II Medicine - Mitochondria PsychoBiology
Existing evidence suggests that mitochondrial mechanisms also contribute to not only metabolic (physical) health but also leads to the transduction of psychological states into biological changes relevant to human health and disease.
Eternity Medicine offers a Longevity Program that includes
- Reversing Biological Age
- Aesthetics
- IV Therapy
ERA I and ERA II appear to have little in common, but they are quite similar in how they view the essential nature of the mind. In both, the mind is equated with the brain and is assumed to be simply the result of the brain’s chemistry and physiology.
This year (2024), Fred Hoerndli found that mitochondria can regulate the function of synapses in the brain via the production of ROS-important signaling molecules for mitochondria.
Also in 2024, Caroline Trumpff and Martin Picard showed that consciousness is linked to a person’s mitochondria.Mitochondria are like antennae, picking up molecular and hormonal signals and transmitting information to the cell nucleus, changing the life course of each cell.
If mitochondria can change cell behavior, they can change the biology of the brain, mind, and the whole person.
Recently, I have become interested in the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza and believe he may well be birthing ERA III Medicine. I have met Professor Hemal Patel (UCSD), who is heading up a scientific team to document the physical and mental changes that people experience during Dr. Joe Dispenza’s retreats. Professor Patel believes the science but cannot fully explain how these changes in wellbeing occur in participants.
ERA III Medicine
Eternity Medicine is about our awareness of the non-local nature of our mind, that is infinite, indestructible, and immortal. —Larry Dossey, M.D.
Just over 80 years ago, in September 1939, Germany invaded Poland without warning, starting WWII—the most cataclysmic conflict in the history of the world thus far. In 1943, philosopher Jean Gebser, political historian Eric Voegelin, and psychoanalyst Carl Jung each independently recognized that the mounting crisis for Western civilization was, in fact, a fundamental restructuring of consciousness.
Today, we recognize that this is not just a Western Crisis but a crisis of the world and all humankind and appears headed toward an event that can only be described as a “global catastrophe.”
Vaclav Havel (1936-2011), the author, poet, and playwright who was the first president of the Czech Republic, saw a hell looming in our world and had the guts to say so on the international stage. As an antidote, he endorsed a type of awareness he called “responsibility to something higher.” In a speech to a joint meeting of the United States Congress on February 21, 1990, he said: “Consciousness precedes Being, and not the other way around… for this reason, the salvation in this human world lies nowhere else than in a human heart…” Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better in the sphere of our being as humans, and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed—be it ecological, social, demographic, or a general breakdown of civilization—will be unavoidable. If we are no longer threatened by world war or by the danger that the absurd mountains of accumulated nuclear weapons might blow up the world, this does not mean that we have definitely won. We are still capable of understanding that the only genuine backbone of all our actions, if they are to be normal, is responsibility. Responsibility to something higher than my family, my country, my company, my success—responsibility to the order of Being where all our actions are indelibly recorded and where and only where they will be properly judged.”
In February 2022, Vladimir Putin, like Adolf Hitler before him, invaded Ukraine without provocation. The Russian authorities and armed forces have been accused of committing multiple war crimes by carrying out both deliberate attacks against civilian targets and indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas. It remains to be seen how this war will end. Just as we are getting used to Longevity Medicine a third ERA of Medicine is dawning that is based on the evolution of consciousness.
The Real Cause of Our Healthcare Crisis
“Integral health is the process through which we humans achieve well-being by the ordering of consciousness. This includes the expansion of consciousness (knowledge) and the intensification of consciousness (wisdom).”
—Graham Simpson, M.D.
Spirituality and consciousness are linked
Spirituality is a search for higher consciousness, transcendence, and the sacred, and is closely related to a person’s state of consciousness. Some spiritual traditions, like Vedanta, have long explored the relationship between spirituality and consciousness. Vedanta believes in Brahman, the divine ground of being (source) which is infinite consciousness and existence.
Mainstream science views consciousness as a result of brain activity, but most models fall short of explaining the full range of conscious experiences as mentioned. Spiritual traditions, on the other hand, view the brain as a way to experience consciousness.
Jean Gebser in his 1943 book titled The Ever Present Origin convincingly showed that human consciousness evolved over 5 distinct time periods.
These 5 structures of consciousness have developed over the past five million years. I have explored these structures in my book Eternity Medicine – Healthy and Happy (2019). Although I would encourage those interested to read Gebser’s Ever Present Origin, probably one of the most interesting books I have ever read. Pick up any Art History book from early rock painting to Braque and Picasso, and you can easily see the evolution of consciousness, as art is simply “concretized consciousness”. These 5 structures of consciousness are shown in Table 1.
MIT scientists have recently found that our neocortex has developed in several distinct layers, and each of these layers shows distinct patterns of electrical activity. Across all mammalian species, brain waves are slow in the deep cortical layers while more recent superficial layers generate faster frequencies.
I believe that each of these 5 structures of consciousness had a predominant brain wave associated with it.
Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist, showed that all human development goes through these five stages (hence ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny) and interestingly these same developmental stages are associated with similar EEG brain wave patterns—slow Delta wave predominance at birth to Theta, Alpha and then Beta waves in older teenagers, as shown in Table 1. Thus the evolution of consciousness that arises in each of us as we develop mirrors what has developed over time in our species. (Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny). The goal for each of us is to recognize these structures of consciousness and integrate them which is the path to “individuation” and the recognition of One Mind.
Spirituality as a form of consciousness constructs the world as a systemic whole, where different parts are interconnected. Thus, at the heart of spirituality lies systems thinking in one form or another. Systems thinking is a general view concerning the nature of reality – what we are, where we are going, how we know and what is of value.
As Gebser shows, emergent evolution, both individual and social, would proceed beyond what we have in our current societies. Higher forms of consciousness would emerge as the relevant development requirements come into place: the overall mental and cultural evolution would not stop in the context of post-industrial consumer culture.
Larry Dossey coined the term “non-local mind” in his 1989 book Recovering the Soul to express what he believed is a spatially and temporally infinite aspect of our consciousness. Non-local mind resembled the age-old concept of the soul.
Erwin Schrödinger believed in the One Mind (as many others from very different walks of life have – see Table 2 below). As Schrödinger put it, “Mind is by its very nature a ‘singular tantum.’” I should say: the overall number of minds is just one. In his books such as My View of the World, What is Life and Mind and Matter, he painstakingly built a concept of a single mind, in which consciousness is transpersonal, universal, collective, and infinite in space and time, therefore immortal and eternal.
Schrödinger believed we are suffering from a consensus trance, a collective delusion, about the nature of consciousness. As he put it, “We have entirely taken to thinking of the personality of a human being…as located in the interior of the body. To learn that it cannot really be found there is so amazing that it meets with doubt and hesitation, and we are very slow to admit it. We find it difficult to believe that we have not located the mind behind the midpoint of the eyes…It is very difficult for us to take stock of the fact that the localization of the personality, of the conscious mind, inside the body is only symbolic, just an aid for practical use.”
Immortality for the mind was a key feature of Schrödinger’s vision. He wrote, “I venture to call it (the mind) indestructible since it has a peculiar time-table, namely the mind is always now. There is really no before and after for the mind. There is only now that includes memories and expectations…We may, or so I believe, assert that physical theory in its present stage strongly suggests the indestructibility of Mind by Time.”
As Dossey writes: “The One Mind includes all individual minds. It includes thoughts, emotions, feelings, and cognition. The One Mind involves a vivid sense of connectedness and unity with all sentient life, and a profound sense of love, caring, and compassion. It is the overarching principle that makes individual awareness possible.”
In other words, our mind is not confined to our brain or body, as we’ve been taught, but it extends infinitely outside them. Having no boundaries or limits, individual minds merge with all other minds to form the One Mind.
The One Mind is also a source of great wisdom and creativity because it constitutes an infinite pool of information that we can learn to access, as many famous artists and scientists have done throughout history as shown on the following page.
Examples of Different Individuals That Recognize One Mind
| Christian Mystics | Theologens | Poets |
|---|---|---|
| Francis of Assisi (1185) | Teilhard de Chardin (1881) | William Blake (1757) |
| St. Theresa of Avila (1515) | Paul Tillich (1886) | Walt Whitman (1819) |
| St. John of the Cross (1542) | John Shelby Spong (1931) | Kahlil Gibran (1883) |
The Solution For ERA III Medicine – Heart-Brain Coherence and Experience of Non-Local Mind
A person needs to increase consciousness (knowledge) and intensity of consciousness (wisdom). To Live Beyond 100 healthy and happy advanced meditation and spiritual awakening are essential elements to incorporate into anti-aging routines and practices.
Key Policy Steps THAT CAN HELP HEALTHCARE
- Support transition to regenerative agriculture.
- Reform crop subsidies.
- Fix USA water supply.
- Break up foreign-owned meatpacking monopolies (from the Big 4).
- Require up-to-date nutrition education for healthcare providers.
- New Presidential fitness standards are needed.
- A change in nutrition to improve mental health.
- Remove corporate interests from FDA and USDA guidelines.
- Eliminate Big Pharma ads from the mainstream media.
- Remove conflict of interest at the NIH.
- Prevent Big Pharma from price-gouging the American people.
- Remove toxins from our food supply.
- Increase people's choice with Health Savings Accounts (HSA).
- No soda revenues on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients.
- School lunch reform.