Sulfate Maybe it All begins with Sulfate

May 29, 2017

Sulfate: Maybe it All begins with Sulfate 


 References:  Holistic Primary Care,  Theor Biol Med Model


 You've probably heard the term -sulfate added on to many medical terms. For example: chondroitin sulfate. You might have shrugged it off like it was just an add-on salt, and no big deal. In that, you may be very, very wrong. At least, you are if Stephanie Senneff from MIT is right. At last March's Clinical and Scientific Insights Conference in San Francisco Dr. Senneff had a breakout session on sulfate and it's importance. 


In sum, she argues this is one of the foundational causes of most diseases. Whoa! That's big. How can she claim that? Here is her logic based on proven experimental literature and known chemical principles. The sulfate anion, a combination of sulfur and oxygen, is the fourth most common anion in out bodies. It plays many critical roles detoxing drugs, digesting food, building our intracellular matrix, preventing blood from coagulating when passing through tiny capillaries. Lots and lots of roles. And where does it start? Ironically, in your skin with exposure to sunlight. A combination of red cells, cholesterol, sunlight and vitamin D are all necessary ingredients to make the sulfate anion. 


Senneff describes our skin as our solar powered battery because it extracts the energy of sunlight through the enzyme Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthetase that turns the energy of sunlight into the sulfate anion in your skin. At this point, sunlight and sulfate make two new and unrecognized molecules, vitamin D sulfate and cholesterol sulfate. The Vitamin D sulfate is water soluble and can travel everywhere. The Vitamin D you take in a pill doesn't have the sulfate attached, so can't dissolve in water (blood) so doesn't have near the effectiveness of the sulfated form. But ditto for the cholesterol. It's hard to get sufficient Vitamin D from oral supplementation alone, making sunlight a critical link for good health. Hmmm....don't you just plain feel better when you get sunlight. 


The principle remains, many hormones, vitamins, fats have to be sulfated to be transported in the blood. The foundational necessity of sulfate comes down to the physics of fluid flow in your blood and blood vessels. Cholesterol sulfate lines the outside of red blood cells creating a negatively charged field so that red cells repel each other, allowing them not to stick together as they travel through all your tiny capillaries and not rupture. That same negative charge carried by sulfate creates a behavior of water atoms on the surface of blood vessels that make them super slippery, almost like a teflon surface. In fact, that effect of sulfate may be central to the actual biology of how heart disease gets started. That's for next week. 


 WWW.What will work for me. If sulfate is important, where can I get it in my diet? Well, ever wondered why garlic is such a potent herb? Loaded with sulfate! And the whole broccoli, kale, cabbage family. Loads of it. Eggs. Ditto. And sunshine? Yeah, I know the dermatologists goes nuts over too much of it. But without it, you don't make the sulfate ion in your skin. This may be another clue why Vitamin D studies haven't always panned out. You can't just take the pure D3. It's sulfated D3 that's the portable form. Like cholesterol sulfate, the portable form. That role of sulfate making our blood vessels slippery makes sulfate central to our bodies being able to be multicellular. It allows us to distribute energy and get rid of gunk. After all, glutathione is based on sulfur. On and on and on. Eat more garlic. 


 Pop Quiz


1.  Sulfate ions are key to making water insoluble compounds soluble and that has its impact felt on what crucial vitamin/hormone?                            Answer: Vitamin D
 
2.
Humans can live without sunlight? T or F                                    False. We get sick, not just from lack of Vitamin D,but also lack of sulfate creation by sun in our skin.
 
3. Human red cells don't stick to each other because they have a halo of?                      Answer: Negatively charged sulfate atoms.
 
4. Blood vessels are slippery because they have a surface layer of water atoms set up by...?                    Answer: Negatively charged sulfate atoms
 
5. I can get more sulfate in my diet by eating what foods?                                   Answer: Kale, garlic, eggs, broccoli, Brussel's sprouts.
 

Search

Archives

2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006