Few weeks back, I remember telling one of my colleagues that our gut has about 4-5 pounds of bacteria and the total gut bacteria outnumbered the stars in the universe. He looked quite shocked and astounded. Does any of you folks realize that approximately 85% of our immune system consist of our gut flora? Your 'personal bacteria', are constantly at war with other bacteria and viruses over you. This is the same immune system that controls your metabolism and fertility, and is the key to the whole shooting match between light and health. But this whole battle only rages primarily at night, when you sleep.
Every morning, the outcome of the war, predicts not only your immunity, fertility and weight but your mental health too. Our lives, you see, are not our own. We don't own our body, we are in fact, about only 10%, which is our physical body. Microorganisms (bacteria) own us, and we are symbionts, controlled by different life form with priorities of its own.
When we are in the light, we pick up the light through our skin and carry its energy, in cells called cryptochromes, down to the symbiotic bacteria that live in our gut. They love light and they love sugar. These bacteria seem to love reproductive hormones too. The common observation that young people and elderly have weaker immune systems is actually a misinterpretation. The truth is that reproductive adults have stronger immune systems that the elderly and little children because the bacteria in our guts love sex steroids. When we reproduce or have sex, we make more 'shelters' for these little bacteria. That principle is the reason women often have diarrhea during a menstrual period, when their hormone levels are flat and the bugs are leaving a sinking ship.
The mat of bacteria in your gut exudes endotoxins that control your physiology. The endotoxins exuded are cell-wall constituents that are sort of like pheromones or germ sweat. As the bacteria thrive over the course f the day, the endotoxins build. At a certain level, your immune system kicks in to take them down, so you continue to thrive. It is what known as host response.
We only go sleep when a substance called endotoxin LPS is exuded over the course of the day by these friendly bacteria in your guts. We go to sleep when LPS reaches a critical enough concentration in our bloodstreams to trigger an immune response. White blood cells called macrophages and leukocytes multiply and kill some of the bacteria in your system. It's well known that sleep is induced by an immune 'expression' or a cytokine called interleukin-2, which happens in response to the LPS put off by our gut bacteria.
These neighbors have become active participants in our entire immune existence as it relates to the spinning planet and all of its other inhabitants. There's more of them than us. They're everywhere. Our gut alone contains at least 1kg of bacteria. There's more in your mouth and on your skin. All evolving species had to evolve around, or more to the point with bacteria. They owned the joint way before any of us got here.
Our coevolution is just a case of domestication on both parts. over the millennia of symbiosis between them and us, our human immune systems have evolved in response to their orchestration. They gave us an immune system as a self-controlling mechanism and as defense for their turf. For us, sleeping is actually just 'thinning the herd'. Bacteria ranching is just like a successful cattle ranch operation, in which homeostasis is achieved by eating or selling off just enough of the herd to keep it manageable. Our domestication of bacteria works the same way. The herd and rancher both benefit.
The evolutionary tactic of sleep is just a sneaky adaptation that allows us to get to the edge on them, once every planetary rotation. The immune expressions, or cytokines, that ensue from high levels of endotoxins can act as neurotransmitters and literally take you down. By rendering you unconscious, they close your eyes. Closed eyes means, melatonin happens and later, at midpoint in the night, prolaction is secreted. Both these hormones mediate immune function through other cytokines called interleukins. Interleukins have numbers such as IL-1, IL-2 or IL-3. High levels of IL-2 are often found in sleep state, even those that result from illness. Once you fall asleep, the surging melatonin encourages white blood cells activity specifically designed to response to pathogens like the bacteria living in your gut. Well, I know I may sound a bit technical and alien here with all the unfamiliar terms, but bare with me here, you may want to do some research to understand further.
We only go sleep when a substance called endotoxin LPS is exuded over the course of the day by these friendly bacteria in your guts. We go to sleep when LPS reaches a critical enough concentration in our bloodstreams to trigger an immune response. White blood cells called macrophages and leukocytes multiply and kill some of the bacteria in your system. It's well known that sleep is induced by an immune 'expression' or a cytokine called interleukin-2, which happens in response to the LPS put off by our gut bacteria.
These neighbors have become active participants in our entire immune existence as it relates to the spinning planet and all of its other inhabitants. There's more of them than us. They're everywhere. Our gut alone contains at least 1kg of bacteria. There's more in your mouth and on your skin. All evolving species had to evolve around, or more to the point with bacteria. They owned the joint way before any of us got here.
Our coevolution is just a case of domestication on both parts. over the millennia of symbiosis between them and us, our human immune systems have evolved in response to their orchestration. They gave us an immune system as a self-controlling mechanism and as defense for their turf. For us, sleeping is actually just 'thinning the herd'. Bacteria ranching is just like a successful cattle ranch operation, in which homeostasis is achieved by eating or selling off just enough of the herd to keep it manageable. Our domestication of bacteria works the same way. The herd and rancher both benefit.
The evolutionary tactic of sleep is just a sneaky adaptation that allows us to get to the edge on them, once every planetary rotation. The immune expressions, or cytokines, that ensue from high levels of endotoxins can act as neurotransmitters and literally take you down. By rendering you unconscious, they close your eyes. Closed eyes means, melatonin happens and later, at midpoint in the night, prolaction is secreted. Both these hormones mediate immune function through other cytokines called interleukins. Interleukins have numbers such as IL-1, IL-2 or IL-3. High levels of IL-2 are often found in sleep state, even those that result from illness. Once you fall asleep, the surging melatonin encourages white blood cells activity specifically designed to response to pathogens like the bacteria living in your gut. Well, I know I may sound a bit technical and alien here with all the unfamiliar terms, but bare with me here, you may want to do some research to understand further.
Needless to say, whether it results from closed eyes or the sun on the other side of the globe, dark is dark, and the darker the better for melatonin production. Sick sleep is more intense and related to the phenomenon of fever through IL-1 and IL-6. You MUST sleep when you are sick, or you won't survive an onslaught by the 'other'. Sleep is when the melatonin and prolactin kick in to make white cells, T cells and NK cells. A gut 'out of whack' meaning, having too little or the wrong kind of bacteria punching a broken time clock. In other words, a seriously impaired immune system.
So, not sleeping on purpose, when it gets dark, means destroying an ancient ecosystem. Folks, do remember, coevolution means we're supposed to be dancing, not stepping on toes. These bacteria keeps you alive, granted, it's for their own purpose, but it's still life. All they ask, is a little sugar, a little light and maybe a few sex hormones to control your internal environment, which controls your external environment too.
We must realize that all of our hormones including melatonin, prolactin, cortisol, insulin and sex hormones too, are the interface between your central nervous system and the environment. The queries cycling in the 'big picture' between you, the bacteria and the environment boil down asking "Is it light? Is it dark? Is it cold? Is it hot? Where's the food? What's after me?".
All of the information relating to these queries is acquired through sight, hearing, taste, sound, touch and smell. The melatonin clocking the hours in 24, trips the prolactin timer to tell your brain what to have an appetite for. Insulin levels are synergistic with sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone for mating. All of these bytes of information are squeezed through the prism of your hypothalamus (timekeeper), the pituitary gland (sex controlling) and adrenal glands (stress meter). This HPA axis, serves as a built in timer, not unlike the one that automatically turn off your coffee maker every morning, except that HPA axis is turning on and off biological functions. This HPA axis acts in concert with the environment to synthesize and disseminate the translated 'rays' of information that have been gathered from environmental cues.
The hormones from these glands, your HPA hormones, are in turn called into play. These hormones run gamut from sex steroids like estrogen and testosterone to cortisol, human growth hormone and leptin from your fat base. These hormones throw the switches to turn vital functions on and off instantaneously. Hormones do this by locking on to promoter regions on strings of DNA called genes and throwing the switches that trigger genetic action.
Whether or not the gene produces its protein product is a function of whether or not it's turned on by a hormone, growth factor, the sun, or an electrical impulse. The proteins produced by these genes, when they are on, fit into receptors on all your cells, which then send the messages to the nucleus of said cell to throw other switches, and so on, and so on. Split second decisions are made by your hormonal network in response to environmental pressures. If any of these switches get stuck on or off, nature perceives you to be too sick to be part of the project.
It's when your switches are stuck, open or closed, that diseases happens. High, sustained levels of any hormone are instinctively adaptive to maintaining your balance on the board on that log. Any sustained hormonal note in the chemical symphony destroys the harmony. So, high estrogen without the progesterone chaser to turn it off, can indeed cause cancer. Ladies, do take note. Also, chronic day in day out, high levels of insulin lead to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer too. Because, once you lost the rhythm, you are out of step and you lose your balance. Then comes the fall, eventually premature death.
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