PAAM Medical Letter, Vol. 3, Issue 4, August 28, 2016

Dear Colleagues!

Thank you for subscribing to the PAAM Medical Letter! Now that the medical letter is going to a wider audience, it seemed fitting to alter the name somewhat from the PAAM Medical Newsletter to simply the PAAM Medical Letter. The new name is in keeping with its mission and type of communication to subscribers; which is to inform the readership about the important medical literature that has a bearing for anthroposophic medicine, as well provide various anthroposophical medical literature that help get a proper viewpoint towards medical and associated scientific topics. This issue will be devoted to the broad topic of nutrition and agriculture. There is certainly a crisis in both, and the anthroposophical literature and conventional scientific literature both point to problems. However, conventional, materialist- based agriculture promotes chemical fertilizers and pesticides and herbicides, as well as now genetically modified (GM) food. Biodynamic organic agriculture, that Steiner promoted in 1924 to the farmers in who asked him for his help, is an important answer to the harm on plants, the earth and human nutrition. Biodynamic agriculture tries to heal the earth from human abuses and provide high quality, nutritious food while respecting the organic whole of the producing farm.

Please note: This Letter is for your thoughtful consideration and personal research and is not to be taken as something dogmatic to believe in nor promote as something official from PAAM or the international anthroposophic medical movement.

First, before going to the attachments, the meditation below seems apropos.  It was given by Steiner to participants in the Young Doctors Course to provide a more meditative and moral aspect to anthroposophic medicine.  The course participants specifically requested that he do so.

Ye healing Spirits,

You unite

With Sulfur’s blessing

In the ethereal fragrance;

You come to life

In upward springing Mercury

[In] the dewdrop

[In] the growing

[In] the becoming.

You make your halt

In the Earth Salt

Which nourishes the root

In the soil. -

I will ever unite

The Knowledge of my Soul

With the Fire of the flower’s fragrance;

I will ever bestir

The Life of my Soul

On the glistening drop of the morning leaf;

I will ever strengthen

The Being of my Soul

With the all-hardening Salt

Whereby the Earth with loving care

Nurtures the root.

In an admittedly alchemical meditation with reference to the Tria Principia of Salt (or Sal in Latin), Mercury and Sulfur and their interactions with the plant, Steiner links up the plant to aspects of the natural environment that the earth provides, as well as linking the 3 main parts and functions of the plant with their associated healing spirits. You will also note that he links the healing spirits, the threefold plant and nature with aspects of our soul. In this way we can soulfully open up to nature and become more intimate with her and the medicinal plants. This is  one of several foundational meditations for the medical movement in AM.

Attachments

Attachment #1.  This first attachment comes from various articles or information on the US Biodynamic Association’s web site. It gives a good picture what is Biodynamics (BD). This type of agriculture is so different from “agribusiness” with its large farms growing one crop or having only cattle, and with its use of modern agriculture techniques such as feed lots, chemical fertilizers and various pesticides and herbicides. Biodynamic agriculture is very earth- and human-centered, which means it is small scale and labor intensive. Machines are definitively used, but some things, like the BD preparations to be applied on the earth, must be made by human hands. Pay particular attention to the article by Lynne Carpenter-Boggs who writes on the scientific investigation of biodynamic agriculture. One can see the BD preparations can have an effect on the various aspects of soil quality and an effect on plant defense against pathogens, by crop spraying with soluble silica. Silica allows the cosmic, extraterrestrial forces to be captured to help defend the plants against environmental insults. You will note that it usually takes 3-4 treatments of the soil to get a significant improvement. One can interpret this as an indication of the sickness and depletion of the earth by unconscious and harmful conventional farming. Do not be dismayed about some of the statements that Carpenter-Boggs makes.  She is apparently an agronomist who makes uninformed and misleading judgments about Biodynamics, such as: “… BD has some unique aspects that are poorly understood and steeped in myth” and  “Steiner, neither a farmer nor a scientist, drew on traditional European farming myth and new impulses from anthroposophy to build BD.” Instead, look at her summary of research studies done on BD.

It must be hard for a person steeped in natural science to understand how Rudolf Steiner could possibly come to practical insights that can improve the soil and a crop’s nutritional quality. So far, I’m not aware of any studies pointing to improved nutritional quality of BD crops over organic or conventional crops.  Most studies take a very materialistic approach, looking at various nutrient content, obviously, not on etheric and cosmic forces that we definitely need. However, there has been research showing that concentrations of pesticides, herbicides and toxic metals like cadmium are lower in organic produce and crops (no surprise here).

 Attachment #2. This is Steiner’s second lecture in the 8 lectures of The Agriculture Course that he gave to largely farmers on June 10, 1924. It is a good example to see the viewpoint he takes and how he weaves in the planetary modifying forces on the sun, above and below ground. One can see how he views the farm as a whole “individuality” that should be self-sufficient as much as possible, and the necessity of having cows for living manure to treat the earth.

 Attachment #3. This is the third lecture in The Agriculture Course. This is a particularly important lecture for physicians and health care providers because he goes into an esoteric, spiritual scientific approach to the 5 chemical elements, namely, N, S, C, O, and H,  and their interactions in both the human being and in nature. Reading the whole agriculture course and the appendices is always to be advised to get a more complete picture.

Attachment #4. This paper, “Do GMOs accumulate formaldehyde and disrupt molecular systems equilibria? Systems biology may provide answers” is the last in a series of 4 papers by VA Shiva Ayyadurai and colleagues that uses an elaborate, well formulated computational systems model of well-known one carbon (C1) metabolism and oxidative stress metabolism (both critical in plants, and all higher living things) coupled with well-studied and well-known perturbations of 5 biomolecules caused by GM soybeans, to investigate what happens to biomarkers glutathione and formaldehyde in the systems biology model. Please read the paper for details.  This paper is based on cellular and molecular biology with a lot of machine-based thinking. Nevertheless, it  provides a systems biology-based, computer model with well documented enzyme kinetic constants to see how quickly the biomarkers glutathione and formaldehyde are affected.  This  “in silico”  study predicts a “significant accumulation of formaldehyde and concomitant depletion of glutathione in the GMO [soybean]” initially detectable within ~0.5 days and reaching its peak in ~9 days. In addition, the study demonstrates “how a ‘small’ and single genetic modification creates ‘large’ and systemic perturbations to molecular systems equilibria.” This study appears to be a diligent, well done one and its results are alarming. It adds to the growing scientific evidence that GM crops and food are likely to be very detrimental to the nutritional quality of the GM food we ingest. See also the link to The Hindu Times interview about this study: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/safety-assessments-of-gmos-are-nonexistent/article7674558.ece.

Attachment #5.  “Glyphosate, pathways to modern disease IV: cancer and related pathologies” by Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff. This paper is by an independent research scientist and a computer scientist. Traditional food scientists, biomedical scientists, toxicologists and agronomists aren’t really doing a concerted effort to study the potential problems with GM food.  Most of conventional science believes that GM shouldn’t be a problem and therefore accept the biased and superficial research that Monsantos and others have published. These authors look in depth at the published studies and point to at least some potential problems; such as highly correlated increase in some cancers with glyphosate (Roundup) use, as well as flawed, animal studies by Monsantos that use deceptive historical controls. They also point out the many control animal groups likely had pesticides and glyphosate in their food, and they also often had an unusually high tumor incidence. High tumor incidence in the controls would blur any effect glyphosate might have in causing more tumors. Despite the confusing and perhaps inconclusive evidence, one can see, 1. Strong epidemiological correlation data between increase incidence of various cancers and introduction of glyphosate, 2. Moderately strong animal data with respect to increase tumor incidence, 3. Strong basic science data, both in vivo and in vitro, in various animal species, that show the genotoxicity of glyphosate or its metabolites, and the likely production of dysbiosis and GI mucosal inflammation by killing endogenous healthy bacteria in our GI mucosa.

 Other sources, not included here, point to the tremendous political, economic power and influence that agribusiness giants like Monsantos have, and that it can even influence the scientific literature. Consequently, it’s hard to have an objective, open scientific enterprise on GM food in this country.

Attachment #6. This short NEJM Perspective article, “GMOs, herbicides, and public health” points to the disquiet and alarm some public health physicians and agronomists have about the lack of adequate, modern scientific studies done by a third independent party to evaluate GM foods and herbicides on health. The EPA’s decision to allow the introduction of glyphosate combined with a second herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4 D) without sound scientific studies is decried. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has labeled glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen” and 2,4 D as a “possible human carcinogen”. This article points to some problems with GM foods and herbicides that are now recognized by some members of the scientific community. Specifically, they point out that commercial, formulated glyphosate has surfactants and adjuvants that are more toxic than glyphosate alone, but that only the pure compound glyphosate has been tested in antiquated and biased research conducted by the producer of glyphosate, Monsantos. There is obviously inadequate EPA oversight or a requirement of independent, high quality scientific research on safety of herbicides and pesticides.

Attachment #7. This Consumer Reports document on which foods have GMO may be helpful to you and your patients; especially the first 8 pages. 

Attachment #8. Dietary biodiversity for a healthy GI microbiome. This is a short opinion piece with many references and puts forth the hypothesis that a more diverse GI microbiome will be more adaptable and that a more diverse diet will promote the diverse microbiome. Unfortunately, in the last 50 years the Western diet has become less diverse and this correlates with worsening chronic health problems like obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus and inflammatory bowel disease. We need to treat gut dysbiosis by avoiding antibiotics and having a more diverse diet.  One cause of dysbiosis not mentioned in the article is our altered environment from various foreign chemicals and toxins in our food, including glyphosate and the newer herbicide like 2,4 D. Biodynamic farming keeps the natural, nontoxic diversity in our food, and helps heal the earth from the ravages of the so-called scientific agriculture that has been vitiated by a distorted, one-sided, materialistic and reductionistic science that then tries to manipulate and control nature.  Instead, BD tries to work of work in harmony with nature, with deeper insights into her dynamic interactions and needs. Current modern biotechnology so aptly demonstrates the current lack of respect and manipulation of nature. Much of science today -in medicine, the natural sciences and in agriculture- is overly influenced by technological and commercial/economic interests that dangerously distorts a genuine scientific endeavor that seeks to truly understand and heal. The above attachments show you a stark contrast between a holistic, spiritual science of nature, the farm and the human being with what modern, materialist biotechnology offers for both us and the earth.

Contributions, Questions and Answers

None for this issue! Enjoy the rest of your summer.

 For the PAAM Board,
Ricardo Bartelme, M.D.