No Man Is An Island, But You Are [Now Officially] Your Own Ecosystem. -And Parts Of It May Be Killing You

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A Sloth.

Short of Buick-drivers, one of Nature’s slowest creatures.

So slow, in-fact, it’s been said so many things can catch up with them, they are their own ecosystem.
-Like a tiny, fuzzy planet Pluto just chilling in the forest; sippin’ on Gin ‘n’ Juice…

Because of their fur and their, well -sloth; all kinds of different bugs and mosses and microbes live all over and in them; right down to the tiniest of tiny-levels.

++Even something as different as a Lion, with its short hair, and dry savannah habitat, has similar, albeit lower-grade issues.

Now: … You.

We all thought we’d be so clever-clever, so above it.

Even though we’re finding out lately that Women choose their boyfriends at least in-part, due to the pheromonal smell of microbes that their immune-system allows to persist on their skin.

We thought we’d finally sat in the wheelie-chair of Professor X, found the one and only code that would explain it all, how the pieces fit, and we’d need nothing else.

And now, Dr. Stanley Hazen and his team at The Cleveland Clinic have found systemic markers,

markers that are Highly-Correlated with CVD, PAD and Atherosclerosis.

They’re not associated with the galaxy of bugs on your surface.

And most humblingly, they are NOT associated with your DNA.

JUMP BONUS!
-Which was one of the more peculiar and devastating conclusions of the study;

similar people,

similar diets,

similar family cvd history/heredity,

one gets heart-disease, another doesn’t.

-WHY?

*****The findings say: Because of your INTERNAL Ecosystem. -Your Gut Flora.

The way that those bugs in only some of you, will create Choline, Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) and Betaine, the elevated presence of which were the red flags for Atherosclerosis and the cv-system Macrophages that cause it when they run into LDL.

(all of these exps. done using mice engineered to get atherosclerosis super-fast & giving them the exact substances the first round hinted would do it.)

The Takeaway?

Stanley & the CC HAVE NOT YET IDENTIFIED THE SPECIFIC MICROBE which metabolizes the dietary fats, PhosphatidylCholine or Lecithin, into these products that lead to the problem.

And they don’t exactly recommend duplicating their litmus-test-proof to normal people, as that would be completely unhealthy; just in a different way.

-Because, the question, as always, is DOSAGE and RATE.

BUT: what they DO say, and this is So Important, I’m going to break form and Directly Quote CC’s “Be Well” newsletter right here on this:

“Fruits, vegetables and fatty fish contain healthy amounts of choline. Animal products —eggs, cheese and other dairy products, liver and other meats, and fish and shellfish — contain higher amounts.

The fact that lecithin and choline are commonly added to vitamins and dietary supplements marketed to promote brain health, weight loss and muscle mass is alarming, says Dr. Hazen.

‘Over the past few years we have seen a huge increase in the addition of choline into multivitamins — even in those marketed to our children. Yet it is the same substance that our study shows the gut flora can convert into something that has a direct, negative impact on heart disease risk,‘ says Dr. Hazen.

He recommends avoiding all vitamins and supplements containing choline and simply eating a balanced diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables and fiber.”

++And YES, Right There in the study abstract, quote: “supplementation with choline […] promoted atherosclerosis”

And he also forgot to underline that Lecithin is used as an Additive in Processed Foods. (usually as emulsifier)

So: to what extent how much Dietary Phosphatidyl-Choline/Choline,

Dietary Lecithin (yup, soy-lecithin, that other Processed-Food-Additive may count, too),

and Pill/Powder-form Choline (which is normally considered a brain-booster, usu. w/ Inositol) in diets & supplements affect +/-‘normal’ individuals,

and not Lab-Engineered-Mega-Mice?

How much is too much?

How much is even good?
(in a similar way that we all need ~some amount of cholesterol for making brain cells, etc.)

How do you find out the appropriate levels for you, based on your Internal Ecosystem of Gut Flora?

-Not yet known.

The only Test right now seems to be the [serum?] presence of TMAO.

And the only admonition: Dr. Hazen’s Advice.

And then the Probiotic/Good Bugs-Solution to this,
which kills the right amount of bad bugs & keeps the rest,
based on those test-results,
seems YEARS away.

Check those links to underline the details and Re-Read Dr. Hazen’s words of wisdom.

…
I don’t know if the galaxy of microbes will ever kill off our friend The Sloth (and I doubt it),

but we humans each seem to have at least one exceedingly-stupid parasitic microbe as part of our individualized biospheres.

It would seem as highly-evolved and intelligent we like to believe we are, there are still very many beneficial mutations to go in our continuing evolution.

Photo Credits:
“X-Men First Class Video Wall – Professor X”, by PopCultureGeek, PopCultureGeek.com
“Cat Fart X-Ray”, by Mouser Williams
“yogurt”, by pietro_C
“Sloth”, by thowra_uk, DigitalEquine.co.uk

Links:
• Source: Nature-Gut flora metabolism of phosphatidylcholine promotes cardiovascular disease

• via: Wired

• Really More Coverage: Wikipedia-Scavenger Receptor | Nature-A role for macrophage scavenger receptors in atherosclerosis and susceptibility to infection | NCBI-Role of macrophage scavenger receptors in diet-induced atherosclerosis in mice