Is the economy heading for hyperinflation or deflation and default.

With the economy in such a mess, it’s difficult not to spend some time trying to figure out what's likly to happen in the long turm. Our current Banking system, like most countries is based on the Fractional reserve system. This means that if the Central Banks lends out $100, then this can be expended into a maximum of $1,000 ($100+$90+81+$72.90+…=$1,000) worth of loans. All these loans which the Banks lend out normaly require the lender to add interest, so the amount the whole economy needs to pay back to the Banks ends up being a lot more than the original $1000 borrowed.. Where does the economy get all this extra money to pay for the interest on the loans? The answer appears to be that everyone need to borrow more to pay for it. At lot of economist and bloggers on the web take this to mean the money supply in the US and UK has to continually increase, so should therefor cause Hyperinflation in the long run. But I doubt that will happen for several reasons:

 (1). Most Banks are private companies, only interested in making a profit and will only lend to someone with a good credit rating, even if it’s the Government.
 (2). Both the US and UK import far more than we export, causing a flight of capital.
 (3). Automation allows companies to sack more workers and keep profits / invest abroad.
 (4) The effects of a stronger currency in the West is causing the offshoring and outsourcing of Jobs and in some cases companies are relocating abroad to countries like China and taking their wealth with them.
 (5) Higher house prices discourage first time buyers from lending and creates an enviroment where they need to save more for a deposit.
 (6) An older population is caussing more people to save for retirement.

All these examples, removes money from consumers and discourages them from buying consumer goods, which makes it more difficult for companies to generate profits and pay their debts. Although these trends do not appear to have effected peoples ability to get into debt over the last 50 years, when looking at the private debt to gdp ratio, which showsnear expotential growth in debt since the 1960s. I think this was mostly unsusanable, because much of this growth was due to a declining interbank lending rate, which allowed finance companies to borrow as much as the total they had done previously, by refinancing their old debts at a lower rate.

As the interbank landing rate had now droped to zero, this processes of refiancing will no longer be an option, which means the levels of private debt should continue to fall for some time to come. This has already happened in Japan, which lowered their Interest rates to zero in 1995, around the same time the levels of Private Debt in that country peaked as the graphs below illustrate:

Although a country with week exports like the US and UK, should in theory have a weaker currency, when a country is in a deflationary recession like Japan and Banks have difficulty providing loans, the supply of currency drops, which should in theory cause the currency to appreciate in value. This effect can then feed on its self, because as a currency appreciates, imports get cheaper and can compeat locally produced goods, increassing the flight of capital out of the country and making it more difficult for companies to profit from their exports. This then has other knock on effects, like lower wages, jobs losses and increased bankruptcy, which in turn reduces tax revenues for Governments and means they too are not be able to take on more debt. Japan now appears to be nearing the final stages of its 17 year fight with deflation, which looks like it might eventually result in the default of the goverments debt, caussing the collapse of the currency.Although Japan appears to have gone through a very long and slow decline, dropping to third place in the list of world largest economies. This doesn’t mean the UK and America will follow the same slow path because Japans exports have remained verry strong for past few decades and are only now starting to approached negative numbers:

The US Trade deficit by contrast is in the red to the tune of $600 billion annually. I guess the puzzle is why Japan, given its very strong exports was in deflation at all? One theory is that the Japanese, unlike most westerners, like to save their money and this tendency has been compounded by the higher proportion of older people saving for retirement.

The inevitable currency collapse

Is it possible to predict how bad things will get with the current bank and sovereign debt crises? If you look at the free market, this should have caused the value of currencies between all the different trading nations around the world over the last century or so to even out over time. In some ways I guess it has, for example when the Soviet Union collapsed and started to trade its currency - the Ruble on the open market, its value increased 300 fold, no doubt because of all the gas and oil Russia now exports to western countries. It now costs $2 for a cup of coffee in Russia instead of much less than a cent. But in other places things still have not changed, western currencies are still 10 times as expensive as those in places like China and India where people are lucky if they earn more than a $1 a day. The following map shows how much people earn in the different countries around the world:

The thing I don't understand is why the UK Pound is still so strong, when we import so much stuff and export so little? I think the answer might come from Iceland, whose currency increased tenfold between 2003 to 2007, as can been seen in this graph:

This appeared to happen because in 2003 two Icelandic banks were privatized. From 2003 to 2008 the Banks assets (Loans) increased 10 fold to an unprecedented level of around 10 times Iceland's GDP. Iceland's banks had over borrowed to buy expensive assets around the world which were worth a fraction of their price after the financial downturn. When a company borrows from a foreign country, this leads to capital inflow, which causes the currency to appreciate. This would appear to account for most of the increase and then decline in Iceland’s currency between 2003 & 2009.

The question is, with the UK Banks in debt to the tune of 600% of UK GDP who are they in debt to? At the height of the financial crisis, British banks borrowed more than a trillion U.S. dollars - that's 100% of our GDP and according to a few sources on the web most of the rest is in the form of foreign denominated loans. This means that should the EU collapse and the world enter another great depression our currency could potentially collapse by at least 6 fold just for starters, we would then have the problem of a sovereign default by our governments, the extra burden in lost revenue from EU exports and a sell off of the Pound on international currency exchanges. So it seems we would be lucky if the Pound still had as much value as the Indian rupee!

But then this raises some important questions, if the American Fed which lent out $12 Trillion to countries all around the world in the year 2008, including china has been causing currencies all around the world to appreciate, then what happens to the Dollar when all those countries like in Europe default on their debt? I guess you only need to look at Greece, where they say "if Greece defaults or restructures its debt, the single currency could trade as low as $1.10-$1.15", in other words any country defaulting on American debt will devalue the dollar. But then why do most countries prefer to borrow dollars? The dollar is known as the world's reserve currency because many countries prefer to hold dollars, like China, Japan and the OPEC Nations which have been storing trillions of dollars to prevent the Dollar from being devalued, this helps to keep their exports to America strong. But when you have other countries all around the world holding onto your currency, then to prevent a decline in the circulation of money called deflation and the consequence of a prolonged recession, it's necessary to lower interest rates and lend more money out to foreign countries to lower the value of that currency. It also makes more sense for foreign countries to borrow in Dollars when the interest rates are low, though now they have actually hit rock bottom at 0% and cannot get any lower. So it probably makes more sense to think of the Dollar, more on an international level, where they are getting the rest of the world into debt, than to think about the debt they have got their own people into as a single entity. Either way when both people, international corporations, the US government and other sovereign nations, have all got into too much debt and the Fed has run out of options like lowering interest rate to help everyone refinance their debt obligations, then its value should start to fall, once this happens it should trigger a sell off as China, Japan and OPEC try to avoid any further losses by selling the trillions in Dollar Bonds they hold. There are reports that Chinese Banks are already hedging or betting against the Dollar to avoid the consiquences of the Dollar collapse.

As I said at the start, western currencies are 10 times as expensive as those in places like China and the OPEC nations which deliberately avoid converting Dollars to their own currencies to avoid their own currencies from appreciating which would weaken their exports relative to their competitors. There are reports of China buying oil from Iran with Gold and it dose makes sense that the country would try to avoid the appreciation of its currency by swapping those dollars directly into commodities such as Gold. Western nations on the other hand appear to embrace the high value of their currencies, buying lots of goods from Asia and producing or exporting very few goods. We forget that the Dollar only has value, because trillions are being held in reserve by foreign nations which allow other western nations to borrow from American and also enjoy living in the debt bubble. When it all implodes, it would seem inevitable that it should lose at least 10 times its value, putting an end to all those cheap imports.

Notice those countries with the most debt, also have the highest earnings:

Industrialization of the home

The sci-fi movies of the future often include images of humanoid robots, vibrant megacities or post apocalyptic worlds. But while the real path to the future may have been completely over looked by the movie industry, one thing is for sure, with the monumental changes taking place in everything from the economy, energy, technology to globalization, the next 10-20 years probably won’t look anything like the last 100.

To get a sense of what effect these rapid changes will have on our near future, you first need to step back in time to the Industrial Revolution. At the very start of this revolution in the 1600s there was a dwindling supply of wood in England, which resulted in the increasing use of coal as fuel, up until that time there was little incentive to use coal because it was hard to extract, heavy to transport and required a special fireplace to burn. But then, once coal was in place as a common source of fuel, higher burning temperatures maid it relatively easy to smelt iron and produce new items like Cast iron kettles, along with another unforeseen by-product of the high temperatures - steam! In 1698 Thomas Savery was trying to pump water out of the coal mines, when he tried using steam to power a piston pump, this resulted in the development of the steam engine which powdered the Industrial Revolution, though it probably would not have happened if we had not chopped all the trees down! Which makes this is a great analogy for how quickly things can change once the world runs out of an important resource like oil!

At the time these steam engines were being developed, most of the people from this time either learnt a craft or farmed the land, but then the steam engines enabled a few wealthy individuals to build steam powered factories which automated the textiles industry, other developments like the steam traction engines evolved into today’s tractors. The result of all this steam powered automations was the mass production of cheep goods and food, which the regular farmers and cottage industry folk could no longer compete with on price, which ment they were forced off the land and into working for the very few individuals who could afford to build these large factories and their machines. By the late 1800s this had resulted in the highest level of inequality, probably since Roman times and caused a number of wars like the Civil War in America. By the early 1900s, the efficiency with which the rich could use this industrial machinery to siphon their profits out of the economy caused a significant decline in the circulation of money, which at that time was based on gold. To solve this problem the British ordered all Gold coins to be exchanged for paper based money in the early 1900s, this enabled England to print a lot more money than they had in Gold. A similar event happened in America with the great depression, when Roosevelt in 1933 ordered all gold coins and gold certificates turned in for paper money, this move also help the US to spend their way out of the recession, building for example the Hoover dam and giving people the first unemployment benefits. 

Nearly 38 years later and in the background of increasing automation, something else with the potential to siphon money out of the economy appeared on the horizon – peak oil.  As predicted by M. King Hubbert in the mid 1950's US oil production peaked in 1971. This now meant Americas had to start importing oil. As America was still on the Gold Standard the effects of a US trade deficit with the oil rich nations could have cause a continual decline in the money supply and plunged the US into a prolonged depression. So it’s no strange coincidence that in the same year 1971 on August 15, President Richard Nixon took to the airwaves and announced the government was banning the conversion of dollars into gold and effectively abandoning of the gold standard. This now enabled the US Banks to “Print” as much money as was required to prevent any depletion of the domestic money supply by the import of oil from the oil rich nations. Unfortunately, increasing the money supply isn’t as simple as just printing more money, since someone else has to lend it, into existence. Which explains the continual decline in Interest rates since the 1980s, which coninsided with changes in policies to encurage more home ownership and Student loans.

Following on from the lower rates of money lending In the late 1980s, a 3^rd factor started to accelerate the rate at which money began to drain from western economies, called globalization. This was encouraged by the removal of restrictions on the movement of money out of the uk by Margaret thatcher. The effects of globalization originally started with the hollowing out of manufacturing jobs, but as the technology improved the internet also helped with the second hollowing out of software and information technology jobs. The faster that money is lost from a local economy the faster it needs to be replaced; unfortunately, instead of increasing Taxes on the supper rich, fixing Tax loop holes or implementing a global financial transaction tax, the corrupt politicians have instead helped the Banking system lend out more and more money to plug the growing hole at the bottom of the economy. For example, in May 1997, Gordon Brown, as part of his “New world Order” gave control of interest rates to the Bank of England, which lowered the rates from a reasonable 7.5% to just 3% before the 2008 recession, rates are now down to just 0.5%. So instead of taxing the rich or the poor, new labour instead opted for the third way!

The lower interest rates adopted by the central banks of the developed nations during the past few decades, has been we are told to help the economy out of the bad times by helping the public and corporations to refinance old debts. But far from helping people to get out of debt, this has done just the opposite and help people get into more debt, causing for example the housing bubble in America which helped to trigger the 2008 Stock market crash. Now that interest rates are near 0% in most developed countries, the Central Banks will hardly be able to lower rates a second time, so the central banks will be, more or less powerless to stimulate the economy as we now head into the second dip of this great depression like a repeat of the 1930s. A number of people believe the US Government, will be able to avoid a repeat of the deflation seen in the 1930s by borrowing more and stimulating growth, this is partly why the Fed lowered interest rates so low, but the Goverments can only borrow so much money before they cannot borrow any more. Just look at all the credit ratings downgrades being given out to debt ridden countries like Greece and Spain, the Central Banks are private institutions and will not lend money to someone if the recipient doesn’t a have a good credit rating, even if they are the US Government! 
                 

But why would the Central Banks lower interest rates so low leading upto the crises, get everyone into levels of debts they could not afford to pay back and then not have any way to resolve the situation, surly this would be like committing suicide? To answer this question, you need to realize, there are three types of Bank:

1.     Central Banks with the power to create money.
2.     Commercial and Investments banks, such as Hedge funds.
3.     The savings banks such as the building societies.

The Central banks who are able to lend them selves the money to buy up their own Bad debts in a processes called quantitative easing should be ok. It is the high risk commercial banks which will be in trouble, unable to collect debts they will end up bancrupt be brought out by the larger Banks which form the main core of the Central Banks, this will only help to strengthen the global organisations these central banks have created, like the international monetary fund (IMF). This is just what happened 83 years ago in the great depression when 9,146 banks failed and where taken over by the central bank, this would represent over 100% of the 7932 banks in existence today. 
    

How will things be different from the Great Depression this time? In the UK and America, Interest rates during the whole of the 1930s never dropped below 2%, they are now at 0% in America. Also, before the great depression, the levels of private debt never went above 250% in America or the UK, they are now above 500% in the UK! So not only are we more debt this time, but the ability of our central banks to stimulate economic growth are at an all time low. Another main difference between now and the great depression is the lack of a manufacturing and export industry, with most jobs being either in the financial sector or the service industry. This means once bank lending dries up, through the build up of too much debt in the system, then we will be full dependent on an extremely weak export industry as a source of revenue for the economy and since this is much weaker than during the great depression things could get very bad indeed, especially now that most of our oil and gas is now imported. Another big difference for the majority of the population is the much high percentage of people who no longer work on farms, which in the 1930s was around 20% of the population, while now the percentage is more like 1%. This is important, because it’s said that a lot of those who survived the great depression escape to the country to find food, with the majority of the 5 Million people (10% of the US Population) who died during that time having lived in the cities.  I think a lot of people do not believe this couldn’t happen now, but look at Greece which already has 30% of the shops boarded up and like Spain 50% of people under 30 without work, if people are not buying food from the shops in Greece, then what are they eating? With reports of children fainting in class from hunger, it’s not a lot. This isn’t something which has to happen in one instant; like the 1930s, it could take up to ten years of Austerity before it’s affecting almost everyone at every level of society.

One interesting aspect to the Austerity will be its effects on technology, the focus for example on shops and supermarkets; will be on reducing costs now more than ever, resulting in for example more self service checkouts and a much greater reliance on the internet. As a lot of this cost cutting will include the replacement of jobs which automated systems, this will only help to reinforce the effects of the depression. With access to funding, credit and consumer demand  at an all time low, the advantage for larger corporations in building large factories, which can churn out million of the same item at low cost, will be significantly reduced, especially as higher fule prices will make more centralized production less affordable. This suggest small start-ups or the self-employed will finally have an advantage, using everything from 3D Printers and the Internet to kick start a new industrial revolution, but will this result in a return to the cottage industry?

The problem with the idea of a cottage industry renaissance as it might be called, is this trend towards more local and small scale production, would also support more home-made goods. So the transformation could be more akin to a transfer of the factories into people’s own homes. But then what would this future look like? To get an idea you only need to look at what people actually need on a day to day basis? Electricity, Gas, Water, Food, Medicine, Soap, Washing up Liquid and other items required at a lower rate of production, such as cutlery, clothes, furniture, electronics and other home appliances. Then you have the services, such as the postal system, the internet and the banking system. Although it may not be technically possible or economical for all these things to become products of the industrialized home, it's worth going through them all to see how far technology could progress in this direction. It may also be worth pointing out that if the future does take this path, then it would no longer be just a great depression, because the fewer consumers were dependent on the global economy the fewer products the global corporations would be able to sell and the less people it would be able to employ. This would result in a self reinforcing cycle towards ever more self-sufficient lifestyles.
 

1. Electricity, this can be replaced by solar, today efficiency is 12-18% providing 4kW but 99% efficient solar printed on cheap paper is in the lab which could provide 20Kw - about 5 times more energy than most households ever use. The only problem here is energy storage for night time use, but solutions using unique materials involving carbon nanotubes or graphene are on the horizon such as Ultracapacitors with energy densities similar to Li-Ion car batteries. As these don’t have any electrolytes or chemical reaction taking place, they have virtually unlimited charging cycles and can charge up in an instant! The technology for doing this is also getting cheaper; a few companies have already started mass producing nanotubes and sheets of graphene.  I also expect the price to drop significantly, because unlike Lithium used in most electric car batteries today, Carbon is not in limited supply. 
   

2. Gas for cooking can be replaced by hydrogen from splitting water molecules, catalysers as efficient as plants now exists in the lab, no need for companies like British gas!
  

3. Water, dehumidification systems can produce around 50 litres per day, while another system I just read about uses a wind turbine to extract as much as 1000 Litres a day in the dessert using a condenser and refrigerant processes. When combined with Rain collection, water recycling, UV water sterilization, efficient filtration systems and 3D Printing technology to reduce costs - there might be no need to pay a water company for water!
   

4. Food. Most of the energy in the sun’s rays are within the visible wavelengths, which plants can't even use since they need UV Light, this means converting the energy from Visible light to UV rays with highly efficient LED Bulbs can enable a lot more plant growth than would be possible with direct sunlight, at the moment prices for these LED Bulbs are too expensive but prices are dropping and a few small companies have already gone into the production of vegetables in inner city arias, using LED Bulbs to grow vegetables for the local aria. Hydroponics also enables highly efficient use of water, reducing wastage to almost nothing, with 1kg of plant mass being produced for every kg of water. One good example is the Omega Garden system which involves rotating plants on a perforated wheel around a central bulb and underneath a nutrient solution of water. This carousel system yields five times the weight of plant mass per watt of conventional flat Hydroponics and can produce enough to feed one person or as much as a 450 square foot green house, in an aria just 2 meters by 2 meters. This is only possible because the plants grow both larger and 10 times faster than in their natural environment. The only real problem here is with the confined space of a home where the only efficient plants to grow would be those which are completely edible like cabbage. Crops such as wheat take up a lot of space with only the grains being edible, but even here the science of plant cell cultures might help, since the grains are a seed, which contain plant stem cells which have the potential to replicate indefinitely, given the right environment. Though it might not be necessary to use to cell cultures, some types of single celled plants like algae contain a lot of nutrients not found in vegetables like Iodine and Vitamin B12. Algae can also grow 20 to 30 times faster than food crops, some forms of algae are even composed of as much as 80% fat, useful for making anything from cooking oil, biodiesel, homemade soap or even biodegradable plastics at home.
   

4. Soap, with Electricity from Solar it becomes possible to make your own Soap using the readily available ingredients Salt and Oil. The processes for doing this involves passing an electric current through Salt water where the sodium chloride breaks down to form sodium hydroxide and chloride gas, this gas then bubbles out of the water to leave a solution of sodium hydroxide in water. If this liquid solution of sodium hydroxide is then mixed with oil such as could be obtained from Algae, then it will form Soap! In theory a small device could perform this process at home.
      

5. Biodiesel, as oil becomes increasingly expensive; it may become cheaper for people to "Grow" their own. Creating Biodiesel involves a process called transesterification which involves using caustic soda to accelerate a chemical reaction between alcohol and oil. To do this you heat uncooked vegetable oil which might be obtained from algae to around 130c, then with some eye protection and gloves, measure out ethanol at around 20% of the weight of the oil and caustic soda (Sodium Hydroxide) at just 1% of the weight of the oil being used. Then dissolve the Sodium Hydroxide into the ethanol, before adding this to the warm vegetable oil, after leaving this to cool for few hours a mixture of Biodiesel and glycerol is formed, the glycerol then separates out and sinks to the bottom of the container, forming a dark layer underneath the Biodiesel. Compressing Algae like olives, doesn’t just squeeze out all the oil, but also leaves behind fermentable carbohydrates which can be combined with yeast to form Ethanol, though it is best to use an Ethanol still, since ethanol can poison yeast and prevent all the carbohydrates from being converted to ethanol.
 

6. Plastic, according to the web, various starch based biodegradable plastics can be 3D printed. But how would you obtain lots of this at home? The first ingredient you need is obviously starch, since potatoes are around 95% starch, hydroponically grown potatoes could provide the first ingredient. Next you need glycerine which is formed when you make Biodiesel or Soap. By mixing and heating a solution of glycerol with starch and an acid like vinegar it creates a liquid plastic which can be formed into anything from plastic bags to bowls or cutlery.
        

7. 3D Printers continue to get cheaper, faster and more accurate with time; some can even combine as many as 60 different types of materials from metal, ceramics, plastics and rubber to create anything from cups, cutlery to items which require a combination of materials like a tooth brush or electronic circuits. Other possibilities include whole houses printed layer by layer.
  

8. Clothes, many 3D Printers are already using Nylon and a few people have also demonstrated the ability of 3D Printers to print a chainmail like cloth. Since the only difference between this and the actual fabric, is the resolution the gradual increase in resolution of 3D Printers over time should enable them to print clothes.

9. Postal system, quad copter are currently being tested as a possible solution to deliver everything from pizza to post using GPS navigation.
  

10. Internet - Wireless Hubs could form an alternative to the internet, rooting data through a global web of home based wireless rooters. In this system, P2P Software could replace the centralized search engines and other internet services like ebay and Facebook, by distributing the storing accross many different nodes. 
   
11. Money - A P2P Network implamenting a solution for the distribution of money without the need for banks has already been developed in the form of Bitcoin.

What causes the aging process?

For a long time the most popular theory of aging has been the free radical theory, based on the observation that older cells accumulate oxidative damage over time. Unfortunately antioxidants have only had a slight impact on overall lifespan and in some cases have even reduced life expectancy. For example studies have shown that taking Beta carotene increased death rates by 7 per cent, vitamin A by 16 per cent and vitamin E by 4 per cent, while the popular antioxidant Vitamin C gave contradictory results. Although, plant compounds like Resveratrol have antioxident activity, they have mainly been shown to increase life span through activation of specific like SIRT1 or AMPK which effect metabolism and food intake. So if the antioxidants like Vitamin E, don't seem to help then what is wrong with the free radical theory of aging?

One answer seems to come from a few researchers who inhibited a transcription factor for inflammatory processes called NF-kappaB within the epidermal tissue of old mice, this they say “caused the skin to revert to the state of very young tissue, both in observable characteristics and in genetic expression profile”. Now it just so happens that in order for NF-kappaB to trigger Inflammation, free radicals must first initiate changes to unbind NF-kappaB from the cytoplasm of the cell, so it can translocate to the cell's nucleus and bind with the DNA to turn “on” the genes to initiate pro-inflammatory processes responsible for the visible signs of ageing. So in other words free radicals do seem to trigger the symptoms of ageing through Inflammation. Although other processes can cause Inflammation, such as viral or bacterial infections, Cytokines released by the immune system or damage to the cellular membranes, these pathways appear to be caused more by external factors than from those originating from within the cell.

So what triggers the formation of the free radicals inside the cell? The culprit turns out to be the mitochondria, which are small organelles that burn most of the calories we eat. The theory used to be that the fewer calories you consumed the less oxidative damage would occur, but studies now shown that those cells which are able to sustain the most mitochondria have the least oxidative damage, which was unexpected and seems to suggest that healthy mitochondria can moping up free radicals. The situation is only reversed when oxygen levels run low in a state called hypoxia where the mitochondria are not able to maintain the integrity of their electron transport chain which starts to leak electrons. These electrons then bind with oxygen atoms to form a very destructive free radical called Superoxide, which triggers inflammatory processes that produce all the visible signs of aging. So given that a number of antioxidant compounds react with dissolved oxygen required for healthy mitochondria are they really such a good option to prevent these free radicals? This is not to say all Antioxidants are bad, there is lots of evidence that Antioxidants like Glutathione or mitochondrial SOD ( MnSOD) located within the mitochondria help prevent mitochondria damage. Also the plant compound Resveratrol has been shown to increase MnSOD expression via FOXO3a activation, which could explain some of Resveratrols benefits. So although nature has evolved Antioxidants in just the right locations to prevent cellular damage, taking similar compounds without getting them transported to the mitochondria could instead lead to more cellular damage as they restrict the supply of oxigen for the mitochondria.

While a number of studies have shown the oxygen requirement of older cells to be greater than that of younger cells, it is not fully understood why? One possibility is that since older cells are more acidic, this causes them to become oxygen depleted more quickly. Acidity or the pH scale is a measure of the hydrogen ions dissolved within a solution, so because individual hydrogen ions or Protons don’t normally exist freely in solution but hydrate to form hydrogen ions ( H3O+), they use-up any dissolved oxygen. You can observe the effects of this processes in places where Acid rain depletes the lakes and streams of oxygen and kills the fish. Within our own body this means as older cells accumulate acidic waste products of metabolism, the supply of oxygen for the mitochondria is restricted, thus triggering the production of Superoxide, inflammation and the signs of aging.

If the cells within our own body react to free radicals like Superoxide by turning on genes to trigger inflammation, then maybe this is an evolved strategy to increase the supply of oxygen for the mitochondria? The evidence for this includes inflammatory prostaglandins which dilate the blood vessels and promote angiogenesis which is the growth of new blood vessels which increases the supply of oxygen. Inflammation also triggers local Cortisol production which turns off protien synthesis; this has the effect of reducing acidity within the cells. Cortisol also increases the break down of proteins like muscle fibers into a very alkaline compound called urea, which helps to neutralize acid. Other effects of inflammation include Insulin resistance through the down regulation of the glucose transport enzymes within the cell. This makes some sense because if the mitochondria do not have enough oxygen to burn all the available glucose then it will only accumulate outside the mitochondria and get converted into lactic acid, restricting the oxygen supply. Another effect of inflammation is the up-regulation of Lipogenesis which helps prevent the production of lactic acid by converting simple sugars into fatty acids. The production of these fats can contribute to obesity, or when they are removed from organs like the Liver cause an increase in blood lipids assosiated with heart disease. Other effects of inflammation include increased cell proliferation, which would appear to help dilute the acidity of the cells.

What happens if after all this, inflammation fails to reduce the acidity of the hypoxic cells and increase the supply of oxygen? Then it's possible for mitochondria to become dormant and stop functioning, the evidence for this comes from Cancer. For example in 1931, Otto Warburg won a Nobel Prize for the discovery that the cellular environment of cancer cells is very low in oxygen, he also wrote about oxygen’s relationship to the pH of cancer cells and discovered that cancer maintains a low pH of around 6 as opposed to 7.4 for a normal cell. Cancer cells are able to survive such a low Oxygen environment and the loss of their mitochondria by relying on an ancient form of energy production called the lactic acid cycle, which as you can guess keeps the cancer at a low Ph. It was once thought that the mitochondria in cancer cells were damaged, but a cheap drug called Dichloroacetate (DCA) already used for years to treat a rare metabolic disorder was then found to block the lactic acid cycle cancer cells used for energy and this reactivated the mitochondria required to trigger apoptosis or programmed cell death, which then caused the cancer cells to die. But if the mitochondria in Cancer cells are not damaged, then why are they not functioning? Might the low Ph and lack of Oxygen simply stop them from functioning? Also what about Inflammation, if this is an evolved condition to prevent cancer then is it such a good idea to take anti-inflammatory drugs like paracetamol?

Diet is probably the best way to reduce the body’s acidity, early experiments on mice showed that dietary restriction increased life span, but later research found the effect was mostly due to the restriction of protein. Researchers analyzed the different amino acids and identified the sulfur-containing one amino acid called L- Methionine as the culprit, this has a very high acidity where a 1% solution produces a Ph of about 5.6. Restricting the intake of L- Methionine was found to increase the average life span of mice by around 40%. Methionine is mostly found in animal proteins such as meat, eggs and cheese, while vegetable protein may contains as little as 10 times less than meat when measured relative to the other amino acids. Unfortunately Methionine is required for protein synthesis to build muscle and for the production of neurotransmitters, but then you can get around this problem by taking Vitamin B12 required to recycle Methionine from its metabolite form Homocysteine back to Methionine. This also means Vitamin B12 can help reduce Homocysteine levels, which is important since studies have shown a better correlation between blood levels of Homocysteine and atherosclerosis than other markers of heart disease like cholesterol.

In the book "The China Study" researchers studied rats administered the carcinogen aflatoxin along with either a diet of 5% - 20% Animal protein or 20% Soya protein, results showed every Single animal that consumed a diet of 20% Animal protein along with the aflatoxin developed cancer, while none of the animals which had either 5% Animals or 20% Soya protein did. So why did a high Animal protein intake predispose these animals to cancer? I think the evidence suggests, that a diet containing high levels of Methionine may have could cause the cells to become acidic and switch off the mitochondria, then in the presence of a carcinogen like aflatoxin, the mitochondria might not have been able to trigger apopsis (programmed cell death) required to prevent cancer if the carcinogen mutated the DNA. Although Soya has been given some bad press, most of the problems can be avoided by using Organically roasted Soya flour, because roasting the bean inactivates the anti-nutrient compounds and flavonoids like genistein.

Although Methionine has a low pH, it’s not the reason why meat is acidic, the reason for that is what happens when live flesh with an Alkaline pH of 7.4 stops living, the ATP, which is the energy currency of the cell is then broken down into ADP and releases hydrogen ions which cause the pH of meat to drop down to a Ph of about 5. All the energy produced by Mitochondria is released into cells as ATP and metabolic processes then convert this into ADP to release energy in a process which makes the cells more acidic. So there needs to be a balance, between the Mitochondria which recycle and produce ATP keeping the pH high and the metabolic processes that cause the cell to become acidic. Creatine can also help recycle ADP back to ATP helping to maintain the cells pH, in this way Creatine works as an effective pH buffer and is known to increase the lifespan of mice by 20%.

The alkaline minerals Calcium and Magnesium have both been shown to increase lifespan, for example one study shows that those who consume the most calcium in their diets, about 2,000 milligrams a day, had a 25 percent lower risk of dying overall and a 23 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease. Researchers also cultured human cells in different concentrations of Magnesium and found that a 50% reduction in Magnesium caused a 10% decline in the life span of those cells. Another interesting connection between Magnesium and lifespan is found in an aria of New South Wales Australia, where sheep and cattle have access to the spring water at the base of a volcano. Here the horses are said to live up to over 40 years and sheep 20, which is about 30% longer than normal. The apparent reason for this has been put down to high levels of magnesium bicarbonate found in those spring waters. One of the locations said to have the highest concentration of centenarians in the world is the island of Okinawa which is composed of coral rocks and limestone. Analyses of the drinking water of Naga city (Okinawa prefecture) was said to indicate one of the highest concentrations of Magnesium ions studied so far. Here in the west the concern is that over 70% of people are believed to be deficient in Magnesium, because the foods which contain the most like Whole grains or the chlorophyll part of Green vegetables or nuts and seeds are not regularly consumed.

The pH Buffering capacity of animals tends to be higher in marine mammals, possibly because of the low oxygen environment. The ph buffering capacity of various animals is based on the concentration of Histidine-related compounds which include carnosine, anserine and balenine. Whales and dolphins have similar levels to warm blooded fish like tuna reaching 400mmol/kg in contrast animals which hunt by running have levels at around 90mmol/kg while human levels are at about 25mmol/kg. Though it maybe possible to increase the levels of Histidine in people by taking extra Histidine, this Amino-Acid isn't normally in short supply, what is in short supply is another Amino-acid called Beta-Alanine which is also found within the dipeptides of carnosine, anserine and balenine. Research has showed a 20% increase in the life span of mice given carnosine. Though what is most interesting about carnosine is its ability to increase the life span of cultured cells. Most of our cells have a limited capacity to divide called the Hayflick Limit, for example human fibroblasts (connective tissue cells) divide no more than about 55 times in laboratory cultures but when transferred to medium containing carnosine this was extended to 70 PDs (population doublings) and their lifespan was extended from 126 days to 413.

Another amino acid found predominantly in fish at higher concentrations is Taurine, with crustaceans, molluscs and octopus containing the most. Taurine is also the second most abundant amino acid within brain tissue especially within the retina, due to the high oxygen demands of the nervous system. But what is it about Taurine which helps cells maximise their use of oxygen? The mitochondria is a bit like a fuel cell and stores Hydrogen ions pumped in from the electron transport chain within the mitochondrial outer membrane, which relies on the pH gradient between the mitochondrial matrix, being higher than the outer membrane. This means something must be working as an effective pH buffer inside the Mitochondria? Turns out that of all the compounds within the matrix, Taurine has the largest pK 8,6. The value of pK represents the pH value at which a molecule has the best buffering capacity. Which suggests Taurine can best accept hydrogen ions within a solution as alkaline as pH 8.6. In other words Taurine helps maintain the pH gradient required for the Mitochondria to store energy, which explains how Taurine enables cells to make the best use of oxygen. But then what happens if there is a Taurine deficiency? Then the pH gradient would be effected and the mitochondrial electron transport chain would be interrupted and start producing free radicals. The effects of a Taurine deficiency include retinal degeneration as the retinal cells in the eyes require a lot of oxygen, while other effects are associated with the aging process like heart disease and obesity. Scientists have also looked at the effects of Taurine on lifespan and found the addition of 100 mM to the drinking water of Fruit flies increased their median lifespan by 14% and maximum lifespan by 27%.

Vegetables are generally considered one the most alkaline foods because of the high level of potassium and magnesium which form alkaline ions, another reason potassium is very beneficial is because cells can exchange the hydrogen ions for potassium ions in the blood. Vegetables and fruit are generally more alkaline when eaten raw, since cooking breaks down the hydrogen bonds in water and cooking oils, which then react with your food causing it to become more acidic. It may be surprising that some of the most metabolically alkaline foods includes fruits like lemons, but it turns out the citric acids in fruit and even Vinegar are metabolized in the liver during the "citric acid cycle" into bicarbonate which is very alkaline. A drink like Coca-Cola on the other hand, which has a pH of 2.5 is 31,622 times more acidic than a glass of water, this much acid would reduce the pH of the blood from 7.4 down to about 4.6, and since Oxygen levels in the blood stream are directly correlated with the pH scale which is based on powers of ten, this means a single drink of Cola could reduce your supply of oxygen to 0.1% normal levels if the body didn’t neutralize the acid.

One of the simplest ways to buffer the body’s pH is to replace salt with sodium bicarbonate which neutralizes the hydrogen ions. Just half a gram of sodium carbonate dissolved in a pint of water produces a solution with a pH of 11.3. This is 20,000 times more alkaline than water so just enough to neutralize one Coca-Cola. In one study, they gave athletes a sodium bicarbonate solution prior to performing high-intensity interval training three times a week for eight weeks, while a placebo group drank a salt solution. The results from this study showed a 41% improvement in the time to fatigue for athletes taking the sodium bicarbonate. Another study looked at the effects of sodium bicarbonate on cell cultures as compared to salt and found an increase in the number of mitochondria within the cells of approximately 50%. In other words, simply reducing the acidity with a little bicarbonate caused a massive 50% increase in the supply of energy.

One of the potential consequences of an acidic diet is Acidosis, in which the bicarbonate system of the arteries fails to keep the blood alkaline, as this system fails it is then up to the kidneys to remove hydrogen ions from the blood. Unfortunately this affects the kidneys ability to reabsorb some important minerals like calcium back into the blood. The thyroid detects this loss of calcium and releases the Parathyroid hormone which triggers the release of calcium ions from the bones leading to osteoporosis. Calcium ions are different from calcium absorbed by the intestines, since the lining of the intestines binds calcium to a transport enzyme so it can travel safely through the blood, unfortunately this dose not happen with calcium ions who's positive charge is attracted to the walls of the veins causing Atherosclerosis ( calcification of the arteries) or high blood pressure. One of the best treatments for Acidosis is Potassium Bicarbonate and since the average American diet only contains about 50% of the RDA, most people could probably benefit by taking more. In the studies done for Acidosis, the Potassium Bicarbonate was found to significantly reduce the loss of calcium from the kidneys, which should in theory help to prevent problems like osteoporosis and hart disease. In relation to cancer, one of the treatments reported to have had success is Sodium bicarbonate, which can be used on the skin to improve the pH of melanomas. But I wonder if Potassium Bicarbonate maybe even better, after all our calls are designed to store Potassium while maintaining a balance of sodium outside the cell.

If you trace the sequence of cell division within the body all the way back through time to the start where they originate from an egg, you will notice that this egg can also be traced back to the previous egg. So at each step back there has always been a living, breathing cell all the way back through the billions of years of evolution. Now the question has to be asked, how has this sequence of living cells managed to survive through billions of years? The only explanation I can think of, is that they must have an amazing ability to fix, repair and rejuvenate when given the chance. The common assumption has been that old age is caused by the slow unavoidable break down of our bodies, but the evidence now suggests, that what we observe as aging is actually initiated by the body to prevent the mitochondria from being starved of oxygen. Whether this is inflammation to increase the direct supply of oxygen or osteoporosis in which calcium from the bones is used to neutralize acids in the blood, or obesity to prevent accumulation of sugars which cause a build up of lactic acid. In other words, all these diseases of old age are not caused by degeneration but to prevent degeneration of the cells! If the mitochondria don’t get enough oxygen, they simply cannot produce enough of the ATP required for the DNA to be repaired or for the Liposome’s to recycle worn-out organelles. Our own bodies even store stem cells to travel through the body and repair damaged organs like the liver, but they cannot do any of this without oxygen.

Is Heart Disease caused by a nutritional deficiency?

There have been a number of articles in the past year which have highlighted the failure of cholesterol lowering drugs (Statins) to prevent heart disease in the general population. One article in the New Scientist was titled “US wasted billions on ineffective cholesterol drugs” and there was also the JUPITER trial in which the study found only a 0.25% difference in the mortality rate between the control group and the statin group. From these studies it appears that cholesterol lowering drugs are really only helpful for about 5% of the population suffering from hypercholesterolemia. But if Statins do lower blood levels of LDL Lipids and triglycerides, then why don’t they show any apparent benefit?

Searching through the various studies on the internet I found a number of things which do appear to prevent heart disease, nuts, for example, have frequently been shown to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease with 1 oz raw almonds per day reported to reduce risk of heart disease by as much as 50%. Then there are the whole grains, which reduce the risks by 40 percent, and beans also showed a reduced risk of 82 percent, amongst people who consumed them every day. Then you have dark green vegetables where more than two servings daily decreased the risk for heart disease by 46%. While the nurse’s health study showed that those who ate fish between two to four times per week reduced their risk by nearly 30%. So what do all these foods have in common?

Fish is meant to be good for the heart because of the Omega 3, but nuts especially almonds, contain virtually none in comparison to the very high levels of Omega 6 which get converted into inflammatory prostaglandins such as as PGE2 which cause inflammation. While the whole grains or the dark green vegetables only contain small amounts of the essential oils. The reason that dark green Vegetables are apparently good for the heart is the chlorophyll molecule which contains magnesium found to reduce the risk of the disease by 50%. Chlorophyll is very similar to haemoglobin; with the only real difference being the magnesium molecule that swaps places with the iron molecule in haemoglobin. Consequently green vegetables contain plenty of magnesium; spinach has on average 82mg of magnesium per 100g, while wheat bran contains as much as 600mg per 100g and brazil nuts 400 mg per 100g while soybeans contain about 300mg per 100g. Fish is no exception with cod, salmon and halibut containing about 100mg per 100g. Most other meats like chicken and beef contain only small amounts, between just 20 to 30 mg per 100g.

Another heart healthy component of chlorophyll is superoxide dismutase, a copper-containing protein also found in red blood cells. This enzyme decomposes superoxide radicals that can cause cholesterol to oxidize. In fact, oxidized fat’s and oxidized cholesterol are the only lipids found in arterial plaque. Before the 1970s studies with rabbits given cholesterol showed that they developed plaque in their arteries, but these studies used dried egg yolk containing oxidized cholesterol. When researchers repeated the previous experiments, they found animals fed normal cholesterol remained healthy. When you combine selenium from nuts with superoxide dismutase, you also get Selenium Superoxide Dismutase (SOD), the body's most powerful antioxidant enzyme. Brazil nuts contain the highest quantity of selenium at 1917mcg per 100g. Among more than 25 observational studies, researchers found that a 50% increase in selenium concentrations were associated with a 24% reduction in coronary heart disease risk. Another study of 1900 Finnish men looking at the effects of iron and the oxidation of blood lipids found that those with higher iron levels were more than twice as likely to have heart attacks. In fact, iron was a greater risk factor than excess cholesterol.

One of the other important nutrients found mostly in chlorophyll, and which seems to help prevent heart disease is vitamin K. The Rotterdam study revealed that an increased dietary intake of the vitamin could help reduce the risk of heart disease by 50%. In animal studies, vitamin K given to rabbits was found to decrease the concentration of circulating cholesterol. Foods which contain Vitamin K include kale 882mcg per 100g and spinach 541mcg. Most meat by comparison is limited to about 3mcg per 100g.

Another nutrient found to protect against heart disease and found mostly in nuts and legumes is the mineral boron. Legumes and nuts on average contain 1.0-4.5 mg boron per 100g, while other fruits and vegetables provide just 0.1-0.6 mg boron in every 100g. Since boron does not readily accumulate within animal tissues, meat and dairy products are poor sources of this mineral.

Fish contain some of the highest levels of another Vitamin reported to significantly reduce heart disease, vitamin D. Salmon for example has 763IU of vitamin D per 100g. Cheese By comparison contains only contains 40IU. In one study, people with low levels of vitamin D were found to be 220% more likely to suffer heart disease, compared to patients with the highest levels. Vitamin D not only helps transport calcium into the bones but is also involved in its absorption. Calcium enters special intestinal cells which then use calcium binding protein containing vitamin D to transport it through the blood stream.

Magnesium, vitamin K, boron and vitamin D, are all involved in the transport of calcium from the blood into the bones. So it would appear that these nutrients significantly reduce your risk of heart disease because they reduce the levels of calcium ions within the blood stream. The plaques found in the arteries of heart attack victims consist of 95% calcium and only 5% oxidized LDL. But this isn’t the same Calcium attached to the calcium binding protein from your diet, instead the calcium ions are leached from the bones as the body attempts to neutralise acids. These Calcium ions have a positive charge, which then bond to the oxidized and negatively charged Lipids (Cholesterol). Excess calcium ions within the blood vessel walls also cause them to constrict, leading to high blood pressure. This happens because the calcium Ions stimulate muscle fibers causing the blood vessels to tense and contract, while Magnesium is needed to pump the Calcium Ions back out so the blood vessels can relax. If the concentration of Calcium within the blood is very high, then these pumps have to work extra harder to keep the Calcium out. Calcium-channel blockers can help lower blood pressure by preventing the calcium from entering the cells and leaving it in the blood stream, but you have to keep taking them. The only effect way to cure both high blood pressure and hart disease is to include the nutrients in the diet needed by the body to remove these calcium ions from the blood stream. For example, Researchers investigating the association between vitamin D, and blood pressure, found that people with lower blood levels of vitamin D gained a 20 percent increases in systolic blood pressure as they aged than did those people who had healthy levels.

While levels of the nutrients in the diet needed to keep the calcium within our bones have been declining levels of compounds like phosphoric acid which leach the calcium out of the bones have been on the rise. Epidemiological studies have also linked phosphoric acid found in fizzy/carbonated drinks like Coca Cola to lower bone density. A study on children also found that the more Cola they consumed, the more calcium there was in the blood. With other studies finding a connection to children with kidney stones. Given the recent studies which found obese children to have arteries like those of men over 45, it wouldn't be surprising if phosphoric acid did contribute to Hart Disease. High consumption of animal protein has often been linked to heart disease but whether this is due to the high acidity of the sulfur based amino acids which are well known to leach calcium from the bones, or because the main sulphur based amino acid methionine is continually recycled back into homocysteine which then oxidizes blood lipids and has long been associated with heart disease, requires more research.

If oxidized lipids and calcium ions cause Hart Disease, then why do so many studies show a strong relationtionship to the inflammatory markers like C-Reactive Protein and weight gain on the abdomen? This fat which develops around the abdomen is named visceral fat and also surrounds the vital organs, while the subcutaneous fat is the type found just underneath the skin. Some visceral fat is necessary, acting as a cushion between organs and as a defence mechanism to store acidic waste and toxins. In order to find the connection between this visceral fat and atherosclerosis, scientists transplanted clusters of visceral fat cells into healthy mice. As this fat became inflamed it attracted a type of immune cell called macrophages, while transplants of subcutaneous fat didn’t, despite still causing inflammation. In the mice with the visceral fat transplants the mice developed atherosclerosis, which appeared to be due to the Macrophages, since the subcutaneous transplants of fat didn’t cause any atherosclerosis. So why do these Macrophages cause atherosclerosis?

Macrophages are a form of large white blood cell normally formed deep within bone marrow, spleen, and lymph nodes which circulate within the blood to clear up bacteria, and other foreign invaders. More than 90 percent of the macrophages in adipose tissue of obese people are located around dead fat cells, which the immune cells appear to be mopping up? Macrophages also have scavenger receptors which recognize, bind, and internalize modified forms of LDL such as the acetylated and oxidized forms. This process leads to the formation of so-called foam cells which are lipoproteins with a strongly enhanced negative charge; this enables them to bind with the positively charged calcium ions, and form the plaques in atherosclerosis.