The core theme is that light, specifically sunlight, and its interaction with biological pigments like melanin, played a fundamental role in the evolution of life's metabolic processes, particularly the development of mitochondria and cellular energy production, long before food became the primary energy source.
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for people who don't actually understand
this concept about how light influences
our metabolism. Do you mind going into
the details of how this actually works?
Yeah, well,
I think we have to step on the gas pedal
a little bit because in your
introduction, you laid the case out
pretty nice, especially
with Nick J Holmes podcast. I gave him
kind of what I would call breaking the
glass idea.
But, let's go back to the GOE and
understand what the GOE really was.
The GOE
was a planet 4.6 billion years ago all
the way up until Cambrian explosion
about 600 million years ago,
where most of the chemistry on the
planet was dirty, okay? And when I mean dirty,
dirty,
it was filled
um with lots of bad things in the in the atmosphere,
atmosphere,
and there was also lots of nasty things
in the ocean.
Now, from first principles thinking, cuz
you know, no humans were alive back at
this time,
we know a lot of information from geology,
geology,
from uh the tectonic plates and things
like that. But, what were the key
things that had to happen that you can
actually still see today?
If you like live in Germany or Poland or
UK, you can go outside right now and
take a look and notice the water there
is a little bit green.
You come here to El Salvador and see the
Pacific Ocean right here,
you notice the water is blue.
What's the difference? The amount of
iron that's present in the water. That's
what makes it green, and that's makes
this blue, okay?
So, this is a clue to the black swan mitochondria.
mitochondria.
Um what happened to life back when we
had dirty chemistry in the GOE? What was
the key thing
that changed the mix? And it turns out
it wasn't food, my friend. It wasn't endosymbiosis.
endosymbiosis.
It was actually
the co-evolution
of melanin and melatonin that began 3.8
billion years ago. So,
one of the things that very few people
have asked me, you're probably the first
one that started the podcast right in
the right spot,
the GOE. So,
So,
what were the four key dirty metals
that we had to get rid of? Most people
who followed my work know
uh they've heard the many things about
melanin absorbs all frequencies of
electromagnetic radiation. Well, why
would that have been a good thing in
evolution at that time? Well, 4.6
billion years to 3.8 billion years, the
atmosphere wasn't developed. It was
filled mostly with methane and nitrogen
and a lot of other other nasty things.
So much more uh light, terrestrial light
came through.
So, it was a pretty harsh environment,
kind of like you see on Mars today.
Although not kind of like Mars, it's
just on a relative basis.
So, that was the stimulus for the early
melanins, not the melanins that we use,
the ones that bacteria and archaea use,
to begin to start.
And then life had to figure out a way
to navigate uh
biology with light, dark, and
temperature. And that's where also
melatonin starts to come up. So, they co-evolve.
co-evolve.
But here's the real key story.
I done podcasts where I think uh
John Jurasek and um
and Alexis Cowan, and they wanted to
focus in on
melanin splitting water.
Uh and all that jazz. And I explained to
people in other podcasts
that this not wasn't crazy talk either.
Why? Because now,
in 1986, we have this problem in
Chernobyl where we have a nuclear power
plant explode
and everybody in 1986 I was alive at
that time. You probably weren't. But one
of the things that the scientist on TV
told us that no life will be able to go
back there for a thousand years because
of the radiation.
And lo and behold, literally
25 years later, all the animals are back
in Chernobyl. The humans aren't because
they believe some [ __ ] you know,
kind of like the food gurus do.
Um that life can't find a way with EMF.
And if you know anything about the GOE,
the amount of radiation that we had at
this time was off the charts. So,
what else does melanin do? It protects
from radiation. So, what magically
happens? Little mushrooms that are
eukaryotes, remember they're not
bacteria, they're not archaea, they're
kind of like us, but very old in
evolutionary times, filled with melanin,
are taking the gamma radiation from
Chernobyl and turning it into energy.
It's called radiosynthesis. Okay?
Okay?
Radiosynthesis is a
a precursor to photosynthesis.
Okay? So, then you got to ask yourself
the next question. Okay, now we know
melanin does all these amazing things.
Here's the number one thing that gets
back to why
uh you didn't like me at one point. The
same reason Rob Wolf doesn't like me.
The same reason Shawn Baker doesn't like
me. Because they don't know [ __ ] [ __ ]
about evolution. Okay? What else does
melanin do?
It absorbs metals.
It chelates metals. So, guess what else
it does?
It cleans dirty environments.
So, life at this time was truly about biochemistry.
biochemistry.
And what happens in that time? What are
the the four key metals that melanin
deals with? There's really a fifth one,
but we'll talk about that later why it's important.
important.
Iron, copper, manganese, and molybdenum,
okay? For those of you who are pulling
out the periodic table right now, the
chemical symbols are Fe, Cu, Mn, and Mo,
okay? They all do different things, but
it turns out
sunlight quantizes melanin
melanin
to absorb these metals in a very
specific fashion. And remember back in
the GOE, what do we know from Nick
Lane's work
and Bill Miller's work that life,
bacteria and archaea at this time, 3.8
billion years ago,
is simple because it only can use
glycolysis. We call that today Warburg
metabolism, okay? There's no TCA cycle
yet. There's no urea cycle. Do you know
why? Because melanin has to do its job
cleaning the environment of all the
these metals, and then what magically happens?
happens?
Iron gets controlled so that we form
iron sulfur co- cores in every single
uh cytochrome, okay? Then, magically,
you guys know something happens. Oh,
bacteria and archaea come together in
endosymbiosis. A lady named Lynn
Margulis came up with this idea. Even
her own husband, who is Carl Sagan,
thought she was crazy. Most of our
friends thought she was crazy. Turns out
she was [ __ ] right. Um
and then what magically happens?
Biochemistry no longer is really
important because that event in
evolutionary history, which happens
about a billion billion and a half years ago,
ago, >> [clears throat]
>> [clears throat] >> turns
>> turns
the ignition switch on to optical biophotonics.
biophotonics.
Now, let me explain to you how it
happens. Once iron is made, copper is
the second one. What is copper a
cofactor for? Copper is a cofactor to
create not only melanin, but it's also a
cofactor for the heme protein that's
cytochrome 4 called cytochrome c
oxidase. What does cytochrome c oxidase
fun we do?
It makes deuterium-depleted water. So,
what is that? That is the cleanest water
on the planet. In other words, we went
from dirty filthy water, now we're able
to have water brought inside the cell
that is so spectacularly clean of
deuterium, it becomes a huge dielectric
medium that surrounds all our proteins,
which in 1941 Albert Szent-Györgyi told
us, "Hey, it's kind of funny, but
everything DNA codes for looks like a
semiconductor because of its electronic
structure." And then other people came
out in the '60s, '70s, and '80s and
started to say, "You know, it's kind of
funny, water when light hits it becomes
also a semiconductor. So, these are like
two semiconductors together.
Now, what's the third thing that happens?
happens?
The third thing happens is manganese,
Mn. It forms a specific chemical in the
GOE called manganese SOD, superoxide
dismutase. Where is that? It's a very
special superoxide that only works
inside the matrix of the mitochondria.
And do you know why it's there? Because
it gets rid
of superoxide. What do What is
superoxide? Superoxide's a free radical.
For those people in the audience who
don't know what a free radical is, it
has one unpaired electron, but here's
the most important part because I said
something provocative and controversial
a little while ago.
That at the Cambrian explosion
between endosymbiosis
we went from
chemistry abiotic to biotic chemistry,
and then all of a sudden an ignition
switch turns on, and life seems to be
able to make light from itself.
Now, that sounds really crazy. It sounds
kind of like when a cosmologist talks
about the Big Bang. That everything came
from nothing.
But it turns out the same story is
present in biology. Owen seems to understand
understand
that this is a big black hole in
Darwin's theory. Imagine a tablet that
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really well, too. You're getting around
10 hours of active use and up to 12 days
on standby. So, you're not constantly
thinking about charging it. For me,
personally, I like to use it a lot for
writing, researching, and preparing for
my podcasts. Basically, all of my
administrative work. And the best part
is I can do all of that outdoors in
natural light. So, I can actually
support my biology while I work instead
of fighting against it. And because the
screen gets brighter in brighter
environments, it's incredibly easy on
the eyes even in direct sunlight. I've
also noticed that it naturally improves
my nighttime habits. Because indoors,
especially at night, the screen isn't
overly bright or stimulating since it
uses your environment to power the
display. So, it kind of guides you
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discount code. No one, to this day,
especially the neo-Darwinists, can
figure out why in the [ __ ]
the Cambrian explosion shows up in the
fossil record that we have 32 phyla,
things are growing like crazy, and prior
to that, all we had was two
single-celled organisms, bacteria and
archaea. But yet, when we get bacteria
and archaea to come together, all of a
sudden, something magical happens. And
what am I trying to explain to you? Manganese
Manganese
SOD was the key to the story. Why?
Because it controls free radical
signaling in the matrix.
Okay? Now, you have to know some other
key parts.
Where in our mitochondria, after endosymbiosis,
endosymbiosis,
does metabolism meet the electron chain?
It happens at cytochrome 2.
Okay? And it turns out manganese SOD protects
protects
that cytochrome from massive ROS. Now,
what do we know about Fritz Popp, and
what do we know about uh Van Wijk? They
come in the story
in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. And what
did they tell us?
To make free radicals, either oxygen- or
nitrogen-based, you have to have oxygen,
nitrogen, or ROS or RNS. Otherwise, you
can't make light.
So, guess what? When you look back to
the GOE and you go, "So,
"So,
melanin was using sunlight to figure out
how much manganese
to put in SOD so you could make free
radicals so that you can make light."
That light was ultra-weak biophotons.
Okay, now let's go to the fourth metal
since I'm going through this process for
you. Molybdenum, that's a metal that not
too many people know about. The people
who really read my work from 15 or 20
years ago
will look back on the jackkruse.com
site and find this really interesting
blog post
that talked about something peculiar
about the mitochondria.
That in mammals, remember now we're
talking post-Cambrian, we're talking way
far down the path. When did mammals come
just so everybody's clear? 280 million
years ago, even when the dinosaurs were
here, but they were little.
And now we're the end result of that.
We have this very unique feature on our
inner mitochondrial membrane where all
this fancy [ __ ] that I'm trying to teach
you about happen. Do you know it's the
only membrane in us that has no DHA?
Do you know why? It kept bacterial
lineage. And guess what bacteria used to
do in dirty chemistry times of the GOE?
It used to use metals as its terminal
electron acceptor.
And it turns out molybdenum is one of
those metals. So, guess what molybdenum was?
was?
It is a remnant
of our GOE lineage. That's how I was
able to figure out why in God's green
earth or evolution's green earth we
would put leptin
below our skin to be an energy
accountant. And then I started to think
about it and I said, "Well, it's pretty
simple. The sun is what has to determine
the stochastics of these metals so that
we can transform energy from light and
then inform things inside our body. What
are those things? That's the colony of
mitochondria that we got from endosymbiosis.
endosymbiosis.
So when [cough and clears throat] I
looked at what molybdenum was doing, it
basically allowed really fast electron tunneling.
tunneling.
Well, guess what happens at cytochrome 2
and 3? Really fast electron tunneling.
Your blue light blockers, they're a
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protecting your melatonin. Most people
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light, and so people go and buy blue
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I'm specifically referring to the red
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evening. Because one of the biggest game
changers anyone can do for their health
is to block artificial blue light,
especially after sunset. You see, if
your red lens blue light blocking
glasses allow blue and green light
through, your eyes will still be picking
up that signal. So your brain will
basically think that it's still daytime.
We know that sunlight is important, but
the absence of artificial blue light and
blue light in general after sunset is a
biological necessity. And a good pair of
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your entire order. And I was kind of
amazed. So then I looked for something
even more interesting. I said, "Well,
since Van Wick and since Popp told us
that dirty chemistry involved nitrogen
and all these atoms,
there should be another remnant, a
lineage, a vestige of the GOE in us. And
guess what I found? There is.
Vitamin A and vitamin D. Why?
Don't you find it interesting that also
on the inner mitochondrial membrane,
there's a vitamin D receptor? So,
everybody knows that the sun can't
penetrate our body, so why would God or
evolution put the vitamin D receptor on
the inner mitochondrial membrane? Then I
thought about it >> [cough]
>> [cough]
>> and I thought about where it was located.
located.
And I said, "Wow, it's right before
cytochrome c oxidase, where we make water."
water."
And then,
what did we find out in another
uh Nobel Prize? 1992 to 1998, we found
out that cytochrome 4, CCO,
that is uses copper as a cofactor,
also is inhibited by nitric oxide. I was
like, "Well, god damn, that's kind of
interesting, too."
So, that means we have
a break
for electron chain transport before
that. And what's the other interesting
finding? The other part of sunlight,
near infrared light, actually unbinds
nitric oxide from cytochrome 4. So, I'm
going, "Okay." I'm looking at all these
thermodynamic givens and I'm beginning
to realize I'm seeing a story
not of post-Cambrian Earth, of GOE Earth.
Earth.
And the remnants and the vestiges are
still present on the inner mitochondrial membrane.
membrane.
Then I began to put things together
really, really quickly. To get back to
that vitamin A
and vitamin D story. I wrote a blog, I
think it was in the brain gut series a
long time ago,
about this peculiar thing about vitamin
D and vitamin A. Do you know what the
peculiar thing is?
They have no nitrogen in them. They're
pure hydrocarbons. What does that sound
like to you? These are two chemicals
that have no nitrogen. Do you know why
that would be the case from a biophysics standpoint?
standpoint?
Because if you have nitrogen in it, I
already told you the answer. Van Wickman
popped all this, you would make aberrant
light from it. So, that's why we don't
use it. That's the reason why vitamin D
and vitamin A have no nitrogen in them.
And it began then to make sense that
this this whole scheme of a mitochondria
had to be controlled from the surface.
Now, let me use again common sense third
grade things for you.
And this will really probably make you
upset of why
you formally didn't like me and why the
carnivore meatheads still don't like me,
but I'm going to point out something
very simple to you.
First question, is melanin on our skin?
The answer is yes.
Second question, how do we make vitamin
D? We make it from our skin, cholesterol
then goes inside to the kidney and
liver, gets to the active form, right?
So, now we know how vitamin D gets the
inner mitochondrial membrane. But,
that's two systems
outside in. Remember, we haven't talked
about food yet, have we? No.
No.
Third system
I told you about nitric oxide that it
inhibits ATP production at cytochrome 4.
How do you make it?
UVA light. UVA light outside in
makes nitric oxide, it goes to the
terminal CCO, inhibits it. Okay, how do
we turn this back on?
Near infrared light. Where does that
come from? Oh, the sun. In fact, it's
the most dominant part of the sun, 43%
of the solar spectrum. So, I just gave
you four different ways
that the outside changes all the
biochemistry on the inside. And what is
food in this whole story? That ties to
something that comes after
radiosynthesis in the in the GOE. That's
called photosynthesis.
Which happens 50 million years before we
get mitochondrial respiration.
So, that means food is an
electromagnetic [clears throat]
barcode that gets fed into this whole
system that was built way before food
was. So, you tell me how food is proximal
proximal
to this story. When you understand the
evolutionary biology of what really happened
happened
in the Archaean world before the GOE,
then in the GOE, then in the Precambrian
time, Cambrian explosion, and now you're
a post-Cambrian eukaryote.
When you begin to see the totality of
this blueprint and understand the wiring
diagram, it is [ __ ] beyond me how you
think food controls you. In fact, the
engines are controlled by the leptin-melanocortin
leptin-melanocortin
pathway. And then, you begin to realize
well, God or evolution is the most amazing,
amazing,
you know, biophysicist. Why? Because she
was smart enough to put leptin right
below our skin. What hits our skin, my friend?
friend?
Sunlight. What's in our skin? Melanin.
Melanin. What did we do?
Right, what did we do post-Cambrian
primates? We were the one primate that
sucked everything
inside and we became even more complex
than who we are related to.
And that story I laid out
in a really big podcast with Rick Rubin
and Huberman. To this day, Huberman
still doesn't know what I [ __ ] told
him, okay? And now, I'm not going to
tell you
that this story isn't complicated, but
it's the most interesting story in the
world. Why? Because it's the story of
us. It's the story of life.
It's the story like I like to tell
people when you go to the Sistine Chapel
and you see the two fingers on the
center panel,
it's the story in between that white
plaster, okay? In Genesis, what did it
say? Let there be light. You know what
the problem with God is? He didn't tell
you the recipe. Well, what am I trying
to explain to you right now? The recipe
is The recipe begins with melanin
as a light wand stochastically picked
certain metals out
to build a mitochondrial engine when the
two domains of life came together in an
endosymbiosis. And when you understand
that and you understand it really well,
all of a sudden, many of the problems
that we have in centralized health care,
in Maha, in the world, get easier to
solve. The official community of the
Fitness Wisdom Podcast is over on patreon.com/fitnesswisdompodcast.
