FREE RADICALS AND THE WHOLENESS OF THE ORGANISM
By Roger Taylor PhD
Today we know a great deal about the living world: the myriad beautiful forms of animals and
plants, and how they behave and interact with each other. On the other hand, by taking them apart, we
also have a compendium of knowledge on anatomy, physiology and biochemistry - now including even
sequences of their genes. But between these two is a huge gap. We lack knowledge of the basic essence of
life. What is it, in physical terms, that distinguishes the living state of
matter from the non-living state? Big changes have been under way, however, for at least the last thirty
years. Indeed they could be said to have begun with the publication in 1944 of Erwin Schrodinger’s seminal little book: “What is Life?”1. He was among the first to
suggest that the unique properties of life could only be approached through quantum physics. Although it
has yet to be much recognised by mainstream biology, we now have a firm foundation for a real holistic
biophysics. One which is already putting holistic medicine on a really scientific
basis, and will surely give us many new insights – extending even into ecology and our relationship with
the living world.
Free radicals
A free radical is any atom or molecule which has one of its valencies unsatisfied. This leaves it with an unpaired electron in its outer shell. In
trying to get a pair for the lone electron, free radicals react avidly with any neighbouring molecules,
and so can in principle do a lot of damage. According to much contemporary health literature therefore,
free radicals are only bad news, being seen as the cause of many diseases, and even as the major cause of
ageing. While test-tube experiments show that they can indeed damage many important biological molecules
there is now, as we shall see, considerable evidence in support of a role for free radicals in the very
basis of life.
The case for this has been powerfully argued by Professor Vladimir Voeikov,
who is professor of Biology at Lomonosov Moscow State University. He stems
from a long and distinguished tradition of biology in Russia which has been largely ignored in the West.
Some of the most convincing evidence comes from his own recent experimental
work. What I write here is based on his publications – and especially from an article entitled “Reactive
Oxygen Species, Water, Photons and Life” 2. In the broad sweep of this illuminating article,
he gives us a new conception of how molecules co-operate holistically to make a living being; and even a
new and credible schema for the origin of life. We can see how free radicals are a key to understanding
the central (but rarely acknowledged) mystery of biochemistry: how all the multifarious chemical
reactions are integrated into a unitary living being.
Energy in living beings; importance of light
All biochemical processes are transactions of energy. So first we must remember that energy
is packaged into precisely-defined units called quanta. The energy-content (or “size”) of a
quantum is measured in electron-volts, and depends on the frequency: thus a quantum of light is bigger
than one of infra-red or microwave. A molecule which absorbs a quantum stores the energy as some kind of
higher-energy state. In the case of infra-red, these are a variety of states of molecular vibration. But
a light quantum has sufficient energy to push an electron out of its stable ground state (or
orbital) into a higher energy orbital. The molecule is then said to be in an electron-excited
state (EES). But all these high-energy states are unstable and, after a while, the energy is released
again as a quantum of the appropriate frequency. So in the case of EES the electron jumps back again to
its stable orbital, and a quantum of light energy is released. This quantum can then either be directly
transferred to another molecule (where it may contribute to a chemical reaction) or it can be emitted as
a photon of electromagnetic radiation. In turn this photon can either be absorbed by another molecule, or
lost as heat.
Most biochemical reactions, as studied in the test-tube, involve transactions of infra-red quanta rather
than light. This is one reason why the importance of light in the living being is still not generally
recognised in the West. It is a different story in Russia, where they have benefited from the work of
Alexander Gurvich – a scientist who will come in due course to be counted as
one of the world’s great names in biology. As far back as the 1920’s, he discovered that dividing cells
produce an ultra-weak light radiation (now termed biophotons) which
could stimulate mitosis in resting cells. Even then it was clear to Gurvich
that this light constituted an information-bearing signal. This finding lent support to his field
theories of biological organisation, which had come so long before their time.
Quantum biology
Since then scientists from many countries have contributed to the development of what may be called
“quantum biology”. While it has not been entirely proved to the satisfaction of the mainstream,
all this work is pointing to the conclusion that a living being is unified by a single quantum
wave-function in the same way that an atom or molecule is. (For further reading see Mae-Wan Ho’s excellent book “The Rainbow and the Worm”3). In this conception light
plays a central role; and excited electrons, rather than being confined to single atoms or molecules, are
understood to be de-localised and shared at least over large molecular ensembles, and probably to
the whole organism. Moreover, as the EES decay they are continually re-generated. Thus an organism
normally stores a lot of light.
Role of free radicals
How is this light generated? It is here that free radicals come onto the scene. Professor Voeikov makes the critical point that none of the usual biochemical reactions is of
sufficient energy to generate light. This can only be done by the reactions of free radicals.
All the radicals of biological
significance are derived from Oxygen. Principal among these are the superoxide anion radical O2— ·
and the hydroxyl radical HO·. In addition there is an electronic re-arrangement of molecular Oxygen called Singlet
Oxygen 1O2. While not a radical, this has a comparably extreme reactivity.
Together these are now termed Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). Also important are certain molecules
which can easily break down to become ROS – notably Hydrogen Peroxide and Ozone. All these are generated
by a variety of enzymic and non-enzymic
mechanisms which were initially thought to be confined to cells of the immune system – especially
neutrophil leucocytes. For this reason, the only function for free radicals
was thought to be to kill microbes. However, these mechanisms (and there is a growing list of them) were
later found to be ubiquitous throughout the body.
The body produces large quantities of ROS all the time - indeed it is a remarkable fact that some ten to
twenty percent of all the Oxygen we breathe enters this pathway. Along with this some other facts should
be taken into account. Thus in the human being the brain uses some 20% of the Oxygen we take in, and yet
it has relatively few mitochondria. Since mitochondria are well-known to be the sites where Oxygen is
used to generate the energy molecule ATP, most of the Oxygen used by the brain must represent a different
type of metabolic pathway. Of further interest are observations by Erwin Bauer - another outstanding
Russian biologist - in 1935. He collected data for the total Oxygen consumption during its whole life of
each of a great range of animal species, divided by its mean body weight. This index, called by him the
“Rubner Constant”, increases by several thousand-fold in a sequence starting
with the primitive coelenterates and ending with the primates. It stands, in fact, as the only known
quantitative parameter which defines evolutionary progress. Note especially that for Homo sapiens this
parameter is at least ten times higher than for other primates. This finding might suggest that as more
highly-developed organisms must have more complex control systems, they will need to store more light in
their bodies. And for this they will need more Oxygen to generate the necessary ROS.
Why don’t ROS do more damage?
The facts just stated are hardly consistent with the current prevailing view that free radicals are
merely noxious errors of metabolism. That they are produced in such quantities can only mean that they
have an important function. And, although free radicals can in principle do damage, there are several
means by which it is almost completely avoided in vivo. One is that the radicals are produced
exactly where and when they are needed, and are used immediately, so that the concentration in the body
at any one time is extremely small. And then there is the fact that radicals can neutralise each other,
and so any unused ROS react preferentially with each other rather than damaging biological
macromolecules. Finally, a back-up defence is provided by various anti-oxidants such as vitamins C and E.
The efficiency of these mechanisms can be seen in the fact that, during some methods of ozone therapy, a
sample of blood is mixed with ozone and re-injected into the body. This quantity of ozone, which would
play havoc with isolated blood proteins in solution, has no adverse effect on living blood.
An organism is unified by its photon field
To begin to understand the main function of ROS we must again emphasise the mysterious
perfection of biological organisation - even of a single cell. The characteristic wholeness of an
organism must have been present from the beginning; that is, long before the molecular signals, such as
hormones and neurotransmitters, were evolved. Such wholeness could not have been achieved by molecular
signals alone because these require time to diffuse towards their receptors. Instead it would seem to
require an underlying network of essentially instantaneous communication. This is what is now coming to
be understood as a field of de-localised electrons excited by light energy – now often termed a photon
field. Furthermore, as maintained by Mae-Wan Ho, for all life’s processes to hang together, they must
also cohere into a single complex rhythmic order, in which the fastest rhythms (and these are very fast:
resonant energy transfer between molecules takes about 10-14sec) are nested into progressively
slower ones, such as brain waves, heartbeat and hormonal cycles, ultimately to the slowest: the life
cycle. Indeed rhythmic oscillations are a hallmark of biological organisation, since they indicate
collective behaviour among molecules which, in isolation from each other, would behave randomly.
Oscillatory self-organising processes involving biophotons
It turns out that sustained oscillations, indicating self-organisation, have been found in a
number of processes involving ROS. Studying the output of biophotons from
isolated blood, Voiekov and his colleagues have found first that this
increases greatly on stimulation of ROS production with zymosan. Most
remarkable was the emergence, under certain conditions, of well-marked oscillations. The regulatory role
of these biophotons became obvious from the effects of reflecting them back
into the blood: a low basic output was increased by back-reflection; high output was reduced. Even in
some non-living materials, for example solutions of methyl glyoxal and
glycine, there was both generation of ROS and release of biophotons. In such systems too, oscillations were seen to develop.
In the living organism the light actually radiated forms only a small proportion of the
total light energy produced; most of it is taken up by other molecules where it serves a control
function, to trigger or modulate biochemical reactions. The rhythmic release of this energy, which is
capable of a wide range of frequencies, going up even to the megaherz region,
is consistent with their role as pacemakers of metabolic processes. Indeed Voeikov suggests that modulations of frequency rather than amplitude may be the most
important informative factor for cellular regulation.
All these complex temporal patterns (which Mae-Wan Ho likens to a symphony) are also
precisely localised in space. Thus we have a deep space-time structure, which is intensely dynamic in all
its aspects. Perhaps it could be imagined as a non-material framework of three-dimensional music, to
whose tune dance the material constituents of life.
New ideas on the origin of life
The finding that ROS and biophotons can so easily be produced in simple
aqueous solutions has led Voeikov to propose a revolutionary alternative to
the most commonly accepted understanding of the origin of life. He draws on recent evidence for
dissociation of water under very mild conditions, merely by procedures such as mechanical agitation,
illumination and freeze-thawing. The products of such dissociation include Hydrogen peroxide and the free
radicals H• and HO• derived from non-ionic dissociation of water. These radicals may
then react with Nitrogen and Carbon dioxide to produce amino acids and other complex organic molecules.
Moreover in the presence of simple catalysts such as Iron oxide, Hydrogen peroxide breaks down to release
Oxygen. In this way it becomes plausible to consider a scenario where Oxygen began to appear from the
beginning, as soon as water appeared on earth. Even at this time, however, ROS and EES would also begin
to appear, These would soon self-organise, and develop spatio-temporal structures of the characteristic dynamic stability which could begin to
deserve the name Life.
Free radicals in therapy
All this is not without medical significance. On the one hand is the finding of Chizevsky in the 1920’s (which has recently been confirmed) that animals deprived of
negative ions in the air became sick and died within days. On the other is the long tradition of
successful therapy with Ozone and Hydrogen peroxide. It turns out that negative ions are in fact
superoxide anion radicals, and that a regular supply of ROS from the
environment is required to “spark” the internal mechanism of Oxygen reduction. Without this the
oscillations in ROS metabolism tend to decay. And then, with insufficient ROS, the radical chain
reactions proceed without proper termination, and go on to damage biological molecules. The best way to
neutralise these chain reactions is to intensify production of ROS by “sparking” with negative ions,
ozone or other activated Oxygen therapies. By regenerating its light energy such therapies empower the
body to cope better with whatever disease process threatens it.
Ozone therapy has a long history, and is still being used with great success today. But it
has been largely ignored by mainstream medicine – partly because its mode of action was unknown, and
partly because it cannot be patented. Ozone, however, has the disadvantage of being too reactive to take
into the lungs. Thus it has to be administered intravenously, or by other routes requiring professional
help. So it is worth mentioning the recent, and so far little known therapy with “Singlet Oxygen Energy”,
as developed by Tony Van der Valk4 ,5 (Fig 1). Air is first
bubbled through water to saturate it with water vapour. It then passes a metal plate coated with a
photosensitive phthalocyanin compound on which is directed a red
light-emitting diode (634nm). This turns some of the Oxygen into singlet Oxygen. Within microseconds the
singlet Oxygen (which, due to its intense reactivity, could not be breathed as such) delivers its energy
to water molecules, which can then be breathed with complete safety. Exactly how water carries this
energy is not known at present, but it is quite as effective as Ozone therapy; and moreover is so much
safer and more convenient that patients can easily administer it to themselves. I have had much benefit
from this therapy, and have obtained objective evidence using Dr Konstantin
Korotkov’s “GDV” (computerised Kirlian)
device6 (Fig. 2).
As Professor Voeikov writes in his introduction, we are approaching a major turning point in biology.
This is one where biology lets go of its current basis in 19th century physics and chemistry
and gains its own proper theoretical foundation. This will eventually come to have the predictive
capability, in relation to evolution, which is lacking in Darwinism. I hope this article will stimulate
interest in such ideas, and also, by providing a modus operandi for the activated oxygen therapies,
enhance their general acceptance in medicine.
1. Schrodinger, E. “What is Life?”.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1944.
2. Voeikov, V. Rivista di Biologia, Biology Forum 94 (2001), pp. 193-214. (I can
provide copies of this article, which has all the relevant references).
3.Ho, Mae-Wan. “The Rainbow and the Worm. 2nd Ed World
Scientific 1998. ISBN 981-02-3427-9.
4.See his website: www.polyvalk.com.
5. It has recently come to my notice that a similar device is produced in Germany:
Airnergy, Natural Energy Solutions AG. www.airnergy.info
.
6. Human Energy Field, Konstantin G. Korotkov, Backbone Publishing Co. 2002. ISBN 0-9644311-9-1 www.kirlian.org