by Paul Fassa
Health Impact News
Almost everyone was introduced to photosynthesis in school biology classes. It is the process where plants, grasses, and tree leaves containing green pigment chlorophyll use the sun’s energy and water to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen for the environment and glucose for the plant.
There has been a quiet, gradual shift from thinking chlorophyll is simply part of a plant’s photosynthesis process that does not directly affect internal human cellular metabolism processing. Slowly, scientific research is recognizing how chlorophyll helps human life, not only by producing oxygen for us to breathe with photosynthesis, but internally, within our cellular metabolic processes.
Discovery of Chlorophyll’s Capacity to Harness Human Cellular Energy from the Sun
Currently, our culture is indulging in an era of sun avoidance. The skin cancer advocates are ruling.
Yet, there has been growing evidence of the sun’s importance for creating vitamin D, a pre-hormone that provides the immune system with added protective strength as well as serving to create and distribute vital hormones.
But there’s more. It appears the sun gets involved with chlorophyll to boost adenosine-5′-triphosphate (ATP). This is the basic cell energy metabolic fuel located in the mitochondria within each cell in our bodies. It is also the currency of inter-cellular communication.
One of ATP’s major foods is Co-enzyme Q, or CoQ10, which is available as a supplement in two forms: Ubiquinone and ubiquinol. CoQ10 is ubiquinone, but it requires one’s body to metabolize it into more cellular user-friendly ubiquinol.
Products sold as ubiquinol are pricier than ubiquinone. But they are “pre-reduced” to save the time and energy of the body’s need to convert ubiquinone into ubiquinol.
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The Importance of CoQ10 for Heart Health and Much More
This relates to the sun’s ability to energetically intensify and speed up the process for reducing CoQ10 into ubiquinol where chlorophyll exists in mammals, as discovered in a landmark 2014 study conducted by New York City’s Columbia University.
The study’s title was Light-harvesting chlorophyll pigments enable mammalian mitochondria to capture the photonic energy and produce ATP. From the study’s abstract:
Results suggest chlorophyll type molecules modulate mitochondrial ATP by catalyzing the reduction of coenzyme Q, a slow step in mitochondrial ATP synthesis. We propose that through consumption of plant chlorophyll pigments, animals, too, are able to derive energy directly from sunlight. Here we show that mammalian mitochondria can also capture light and synthesize ATP when mixed with a light-capturing metabolite of chlorophyll.
The researchers thoroughly examined and analyzed tissues from various lab animals with state of the art photonic equipment to determine that chlorophyll metabolites can and do reside in mammalian tissue.
The researchers observed that the worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. Elegans), considered a valid in vivo subject for many studies, lived longer after infusions of chlorophyll metabolites and light exposure. After referencing earlier studies that indicate how green vegetables’ chlorophyll uptake and sunlight benefit longer life and healthier aging, the researchers then concluded:
These benefits are commonly attributed to an increase in vitamin D from sunlight exposure and consumption of antioxidants from green vegetables.
Our work suggests these explanations might be incomplete. [emphasis added]
Sunlight is the most abundant energy source on this planet. Throughout [history], the internal organs of most animals, including humans, have been bathed in photonic energy from the sun.
Do animals have metabolic pathways that enable them to take greater advantage of this abundant energy source?
The demonstration that: (1) light-sensitive chlorophyll-type molecules are sequestered into animal tissues; (2) in the presence of the chlorophyll metabolite P-a, there is an increase in ATP in isolated animal mitochondria, tissue homogenates and in C. elegans, upon exposure to light of wavelengths absorbed by P-a; and (3) in the presence of P-a, light alters fundamental biology resulting in up to a 17% extension of lifespan in C.
Elegans suggests that, similarly to plants and photosynthetic organisms, animals also possess metabolic pathways to derive energy directly from sunlight. Additional studies should confirm these conclusions.
You can view the complete study text here.
That’s quite a revelation. It explains the importance of sun exposure combined with the chlorophyll intake of green vegetable and exposes the fallacy of sun avoidance even more than what is known about sunlight and vitamin D production does.
It also implies that taking supplemental coenzyme Q10, even in its more easily assimilated reduced form of ubiquinol, may not be necessary with adequate chlorophyll intake and sunlight exposure.
At the very least, supplementing chlorophyll and allowing more sunlight exposure with its wide variety of wavelengths will augment CoQ10’s ability to nourish the mitochondria with added ATP, the foundation of cellular energy throughout all body and organ tissues with less or no oxidative damage from cellular respiration processes.
Chlorophyll Helps Reverse Anemia
Human and other mammalian blood cells resemble chlorophyll’s cellular and elemental biochemical structure very closely with one major difference: Human blood cells have iron as their central atoms while chlorophyll cells have magnesium atoms within their centers.
It’s the iron that is considered essential for creating the hemoglobin (Hgb) of red blood cells, which transports oxygen from the lungs or gills of vertebrates into tissue cells throughout the body. Lower levels of hemoglobin impede the oxygen cellular respiration that’s needed for metabolic processes.
The result is called anemia. Despite the difference in red blood cells and chlorophyll’s central atoms, studies indicate somehow chlorophyll does boost hemoglobin and cellular respiration
The most recent was an impressive human clinical case study performed on humans undergoing chemotherapy in India over a three year period ending in 2006. The researchers stated that hemoglobin levels are lowered among chemo patients.
Sometimes the only solution is a blood transfusion using blood from donors of similar blood types.
They were aware of earlier studies using chlorophyll to restore normalcy among animals with anemia. So after 50 of the 400 eligible subjects were excluded from their clinical study because the hospitals had insisted on transfusions for them, the researchers proceeded to feed fresh wheat-grass juice to them daily.
They closely observed changes in the hemoglobin level, serum protein, and performance status, as well as quality of life improvements with the following results:
The results in 348 patients, after exclusion of 50 patients requiring transfusion support, were significant improvements in hemoglobin, total protein, and albumin levels, and a performance status enhanced from 50% to 70% on the Karnovsky Scale [where 100 is “perfect” health and 0 is death.]
The authors concluded that wheat-grass juice is an excellent alternative to blood transfusion [to reverse anemia]. (Study source)
Some Major Sources of Chlorophyll
Of course the darker green a veggie is the more chlorophyll it contains. It’s optimum to consume organic green leafy vegetables.
But in addition to this article’s information on chlorophyll, there’s another nutritional factor that should be referenced – magnesium content. That’s the central atom in chlorophyll’s cell structure.
Magnesium is an underrated mineral. It has been diminished in plant crops by Big Ag’s farming practices that deplete the soil’s mineral content, inhibiting green plant crop uptake of magnesium. Yet, it is the master mineral that is involved with over 300 metabolic processes within our bodies.
Soils with depleted minerals won’t help with magnesium as much as is needed for optimum health. Supplementing is a healthy option. Fresh juice from locally grown wheat-grass, as used in the India chemo study above, is an excellent source of chlorophyll.
There are also liquid chlorophyll solutions sold in health food stores or online, usually in small bottles with eye-droppers. These are commonly used by mostly older folks with low oxygen uptake, especially at higher altitudes to ensure cellular oxygen respiration.
Chlorella may be even better than all other chlorophyll sources. It’s not only known for its chlorophyll density, it is high in protein and other nutrients. And it’s a one-celled algae superfood that also binds to toxins and detoxifies.
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