] Re: Study on Serotonin's link to Gut and Bones- plants vs pharmaceuticals

[Guest guest]

yes there is a whole different hierarchy and meaning that the body ascribes to different hormones in different organ systems at different times and dosages.

The following is some quotes from a fabulous book called 'The lost language of plants" by Harrod Buhner

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Language-Plants-Ecological-Importance/dp/1890132888/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_t

The more balanced view of microbe as colleague and ancestor remain almost unexpressed. Our culture ignores the hard won fact that these disease ’agents’ these ‘germs’ also germinated all life. Our ancestors, the germs were bacteria. Bacteria are not germs but the germinators and fabric of all life. In declaring war on them we are declaring war on the underlying living structure of the planet.

“bacteria may be Earths tiniest life forms but they took giant steps in evolution. Bacteria even invented multi-cellularity. Some lineages of bacteria went on to evolve into many different kinds of beings- including ourselves.” Lynn Margulis

Clearly the assumptions embedded in the ‘germ theory’ of disease carried hidden impacts. Accepting that theory as truth has led to behaviours , industrial, social and environmental that are now being recognized as having serious long term impacts.

We have only had 100 years of medicine based on ‘universe-as -machine ‘, it is not so surprising that there are errors in our understanding. Earth has been producing medicines and healing disease a lot longer than people have – and Gaia is a lot better at it than we are.

The pharmaceuticals created out of the Universe- as- machine epistemology present a significant danger to the dance between plant chemistries and the living organisms of the earth.

It is not merely the difference of chemical structure but of MEANING.

Synthetic pharmaceuticals are made for the profit of a few, and secondarily as a way to alleviate symptoms of human bodily conditions defined arbitrarily as disease.

Plant chemistries are created out of an intricately interwoven biofeedback communication loop between different elements of the ecosystems in response to changing conditions, in order to regulate these conditions to maintain the homeostasis of the earth.

Both types of chemistries are ubiquitous in the earths ecosystems in tiny dosages of ppm,ppb,ppt. Plant chemistries are chemical communication messages, pharmaceuticals are noise.

Pharmacological production and release, in essence has embedded within it the meaninglessness that the epistemology of science ascribes to the universe.

But the plant created chemistries released into the ecosystems of the earth do possess meaning; each is released to accomplish specific ecosystem purposes.

The category error of science as regards pharmaceuticals possess innate, grave consequences. Human produced chemicals carry information that is meaningless yet still initiates life-web responses. Unfortunately, because we are all expressions of bacterial complexity they effect the metabolic pathways of all living things.

Pharmaceuticals act on short time scales, produce better outcomes than plant medicines, just as the short term use of pesticides produces better crop outcomes. When viewed on long scales however, the superiority of pharmaceuticals and pesticides vanishes.

The pesticide/agrochemical war that produces 1 season of increased crop yield also initiates ever widening ecosystem perturbations. Attempting to keep production levels the same a s the first year necessitates increased no of chemicals with greater and greater ecosystem perturbations. Over time these result in chaos. This escalating dynamic occurs in exactly the same way in internal human ecologies in people who use lots of pharmaceuticals.

Plant chemistries , unlike pharmaceuticals , are released into the world for a reason. Each chemistry a word imbued with import. All together a language that possesses its own grammar and syntax. Its own underlying epistemology. Scientists study the vowels and consonants and how they are put together to form plant words. They do not study their meaning, nor the intelligence ,nor intent that gives rise to that meaning. Too often they insist there is no meaning for, as anyone can see, plants have no brain. Still, each complex assemblage of expressed plant chemistries is a sentence communication carrying specific messages, imbued with MEANING. And the world receives those messages and responds.

The plants release Earth’s subtle chemistries through their intertwined, interdependent synaptic feedback loops faster and more complexly than researchers or anyone, can write them down. Their meanings pile one on top of another until the linear mind is overwhelmed.

They shift the fabric of our world, touch us with meaning, in ways too complex for our conscious minds to grasp. Nevertheless we can grasp them. They come in Gestalts to the attentive mind and caring heart, concise reflections of plant and Earth interrelationships, in knowledge Whole and complete.

“The trees are the teachers of the law” ancient Seminole saying.

For thousands of generations , human beings in all cultures on earth have known that plants ( and all of nature express meaning and that there is intent behind it. They have been listening to and accumulating those meanings. They have been bubbling a biognosis generated oral library of knowledge of the world and humanities place within it.

“ It is the body of a plant that helps the body of a sick person but it is the spirit of a plant that cures disease”.

Scientists are incapable even of knowing that they are in no position to understand the soul of a flower in the meadow. In the belief they are exploring the root of life, geneticists extract and synthesize the genes present in the cells of living things. But natures soul does not lie hidden in the DNA.

Do you think it possible to dissect a human being, render it down to its constituent parts, feed them to a machine which measures such things and determine from that its ability to paint or create great music. NO?

Then why do you think that once you have done this with my body you know anything about me?

“There are holes inside all of us . Holes that can only be filled by certain plants. Empty space needing tree, or stone or bear . Emptiness that can only be filled by some of the other life of this earth. Other life with which we have evolved through a million years of co evolution. Without filling them we live half a life never becoming fully human, never being healed or whole or completely who we are . Never becoming completely sane.

Re: Study on Serotonin's link to Gut and Bones

It's well known that Prozac and other SSRIs cause bone loss: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYD/is_23_39/ai_n8581182 For that reason, this line of research represents more possible disaster capitalism. I'm pretty sure that the SSRI side effect of bone loss is why the researchers even knew to search for bone density effects and their relation to serotonin. Depending on who was funding this study (or who funded the academic institution which did the study), it could seem like a matter of drug companies trying to make lemonade from lemons-- learn from the Mengele-type adverse events of their own products and turn this knowledge into profits. The path of discovery here isn't exactly being publicized. Even if the researchers are naive about the "inspiration" for this study, I'm always wary when one "brain chemical" (as this study points out, "brain chemicals" are really all-over-body chemicals for the most part) is pinpointed among the 100 or so closely interacting chemicals that are scarcely understood because, again, it sounds like pharmaceutical-funded drug research (is there any other kind?), looking for magic pills to sell. The body just doesn't conform to drug-marketing schemes, isn't that simple. Could be that by reducing serotonin, they'll cause a host of other nasty side effects which can then be studied and used to generate another scheme to treat the side effects. The bigger question is why are people having problems with bone density? But looking for cause leads to prevention which cuts profits. >> From efluxmedia.com> > Bone Formation Linked to Serotonin in Gut, Research Brings Hope for > Osteoporosis Sufferers > By Alice Carver > 14:40, November 27th 2008 3 votes> > Bone formation appears to be controlled by serotonin, a chemical in > the brain that also influences mood, appetite, sleep and metabolism. > The discovery may lead to a novel treatment of osteoporosis, a > disease that affects 10 million Americans older than 50. > > In a paper published online Wednesday in the journal Cell, a team of > researchers led by Dr. Gerard Karsenty, chairman of the department of > genetics and development and the Columbia University College of > Physicians and Surgeons, reports the discovery of a surprising system > that appears to control bone formation. The research links serotonin > produced in the duodenum to the proliferation of osteoblasts, which > are cells that create new bone.