Bacteria’s History
Bacteria are the dominant life forms on this Earth.
Our planet was formed around 4.6 billion years ago, and bacteria appeared about 1 billion years after that.
Bacteria are the oldest living creatures on this planet.
They're literally everywhere from the deep seas to volcanic molten rock and Antarctic glaciers.
2.5 billion years ago when our Earth was fully immersed and covered with water, methane was the dominant atmospheric gas so the planet was really hot at the time.
So at that time it was all anaerobic bacteria because there was no oxygen available.
The Great Oxygenation Event
With the emergence of cyanobacteria that used photosynthesis from the rays of the Sun, they were able to pump oxygen out over hundreds of millions of years into our atmosphere as a byproduct of their respiratory cycle.
This is called the Great Oxygenation Event.
When methane combined with oxygen (O) it formed carbon dioxide (CO2), a less powerful greenhouse gas, and water.
Both of these gases (O and CO2) made its way to help eukaryotic life forms form, such as plants using carbon dioxide for respiration and mammals using oxygen for respiration.
This was not a coincidence but an evolutionary advantage as aerobic respiration is 20 times more effective than anaerobic respiration.
Essentially, this is a bacteria filled world and we're just squatting here.
How Bacteria Communicate
In terms of the bacteria that humans interact with daily, these bacteria live in colonies.
Most forms communicate via quorum sensing. R
This allows them to discuss what is going on around their environment, exchange DNA, nutrients, and enzymes, and together they can form biofilms to protect the community from external invaders.
And the gut biofilms can house both good and bad bacteria, which make it hospitable for parasites, and give a place for viruses to live.
You can read my post all about quorum sensing and biofilms here.
Bacteria Make Us Adaptable
Because humans only have 3 billion base pairs from 23 chromosomes that make up our DNA, it's not that adaptable.
What is wild is that bacteria have millions of base pairs that we use to adapt to our environment every second.
Because they can do Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT), which means they can exchange genes between each other, and they're able to pleomorph in response to their external environment. R
Pleomorph means that they can change shape and their genetic code in response to what they're presented with. R
For example this can be healthy fiber, or it could be a toxic piece of microplastic.
I'm simplifying this on purpose.
Pleomorphism in action:
Babesia R
Bartonella R
Blastocystis R
Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme) R
Candida albicans R
Clostridium R
Entamoeba histolytica R
E. coli R
H. pylori R
Mycobacteria Paratuberulosis (MAP) R
Many of the bad bacteria in our body that causes dysbiosis are simply as a result of pleomorphism because of the many toxins and pollutants in our food supply and systems.
This is good because you want to be able to break down everything that you eat, although the byproduct they make may not be favorable for you.
When those bad pleomorphic bacteria overwhelm us, antimicrobials are necessary to turn on their right genes to be healthy again, and they will stay that way as long as you cut out the thing that continues to make them pleomorph.
Béchamp or Pasteur?:
Knowing this inspired me to name my healthy/longevity homes company Bechamp LLC, after the famous scientist Antoine Béchamp, who said the environment (terrain) is everything.
He disputed and argued against Louis Pasteur, who's main argument was bacteria are here to kill us.
Both of these scientists brought great revolutions to our world.
Pasteur invented the pasteurization process, bacterial vaccination, and microbial fermentation, while Béchamp was able to provide us with the first chemotherapy therapy drugs.
Everyday new and new articles are published in journals showing the amazing effects of the environment on bacterial organisms and the byproducts they make.
For example, eating resistance starch is going to produce short chain fatty acids and short chain fatty acids are amazing for colonic health and can be used as a reserve system for energy.
This is how cows can get fat eating just grass.
How Bacteria Cause Plaquing and Heart Disease
Many types of bacteria we encounter have a glycocalyx layer around their cell membrane, making it easy for them to float around each other by simple polarity. R
In the endothelial system, when there is damage to the endothelial glycocalyx, bacteria and bacterial byproducts (like LPS) can get stuck to there, similar to how magnets positive (missing endothelial glycocalyx) and negative (bacterial glycocalyx) attract.
This is because LPS binds to cholesterol particles via opsonization (more on this later), which are made from the liver.
If you are overloaded with LPS, bacteria have the ability to quorum sense, and create biofilms, which make it much harder to complete Wound Healing cycles.
This is one major reason why infections lead to heart disease as immune cells and platelets try to take over, fight, and heal the infection.
But biofilms can be smart and gate-keep your immune system by create their own negative polarity with biofilms.
For example, biofilms create a
They also try to absorb your nutrients directly in your blood.
If years go by and you don't treat that infection it can lead to calcification of the vascular system.
Biofilms and NETs
Neutrophillic Extracellular Traps (NETs) are released from your neutrophils when fighting a pathogen.
NETs are able to trap pathogens and kill them, but bacteria will fight back by creating biofilms.
Biofilm formation causes the release of more NETs and this is a positive feedback loop for microsepsis and endotoxemia (more on this later), which will set you up for poor redox (more on this later as well). R
My best guess is that the “herx” effect you feel from die off is not just the LPS entering your blood, but the oxidative stress from NETs. R
Statins and LDL Working Together?
Statins
Arterial calcification scores are seen after this has been going on for a long time, since LDL and calcium in the blood are favorably charged together.
These infections can be anywhere in the head all the way down to the feet, meaning it could be microscopic or large.
A chronic infection like this leads to chronic inflammation, capillary leak syndrome, and microsepsis to full-on sepsis, especially when fighting another infection.
This is one reason why people with chronic heart disease and atherosclerosis have multiple comorbidities and have to rely on statins.
Statins have the effect of directly killing microbes. R
That's why it works so well to lower your cholesterol and reduce risk of heart disease.
As a side note it reduces your Co-Enzyme Q10, but you’re already taking that for your mitochondrial health, right?. R
Cholesterol, HDL, LDL, and LP(a)
this is an older video, here is the original link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gHjx_hYA14
Cholesterol byproducts such as HDL, LDL, and LPa work in 2 essential ways on pathogens like bacteria.
Firstly, it is an opsonin - essentially it allows immune cells to stick to bacteria (and pathogens). R R
Not only is this is an important step in phagocytosis, but also in autophagy (recycling your own cells).
There are now known to be at least 50 proteins that act as opsonins for pathogens or other targets, and more on this later… R
Second, LDL oxidizes with O2- to create ox-LDL to remove oxidative load out of the blood. R
Having chronic inflammation like junction dysfunction, especially from infections, adds to further oxidative levels over time leading from stable to unstable plaque. R
Antimicrobials and Biofilm Disrupters
What super cool is that you can reduce your cholesterol levels through antimicrobials and biofilms disruptors.
Not only that, but you can improve Wound Healing cycles with biofilm disruptors!
I find this fascinating!
To break up biofilms the Proteolytic Enzymes (Interfase + or Fibrenza / Nephrinol), like we discussed before would be for sure helpful!