Ray Peat on Endotoxin 🧵

"I'm inclined to think that even cancer is largely an endotoxin problem. Chronic, year after year, bad food, irritating the intestine, causing increased histamine and serotonin and estrogen. A constant stream of endotoxin flowing through the system, shaking up chromosomes, creating inflammation, fatiguing the repair systems. Finally, when the repair systems are down, to a certain extent, the cancers that are constantly popping up stop being removed. And so if you don't die of acute sepsis, then heart disease and cancer, I think, are the result of chronic exposure to the endotoxin."

"Even if he sometimes had an old person who was very debilitated, he (Max Gerson) would sometimes give them a coffee enema every hour around the clock, get them out of bed to wash their intestine again. And he actually cured numerous advanced cases of cancer documented with photographs. I think chronically keeping the endotoxin down gives the recuperative system a great chance."

"When a rat is restrained, held down on its back, it quickly develops ulcers, but if it has a stick to bite, it is very resistant to the formation of the ulcers. The ability to do something with a defensive meaning prevents the excessive production of serotonin and its consequences, such as increased production of cortisol and other stress hormones, and disturbance of cirulation and energy production. Endotoxin and prostaglandins activate these same systems, and progesterone and aspirin are among the protective factors that can oppose those effects.”

“Cholesterol has a long history as a protectant against many toxins; I think this relates to the fact that people with very low cholesterol have such a high incidence of endotoxin-related symptoms.”

“The rate of cholesterol production, and the amount in circulation, tend to be inversely related to systemic inflammation. All of the types of lipoprotein absorb, bind, and help to eliminate endotoxin, for example.”

“We are all subject to a variable degree of inflammatory stimulation from the endotoxin absorbed from the intestine, but a healthy liver normally prevents it from reaching the general circulation, and produces a variety of protective factors. The HDL lipoprotein is one of these, which protects against inflammation by binding bacterial endotoxins that have reached the bloodstream.

Chylomicrons and VLDL also absorb, bind, and help to eliminate endotoxins. All sorts of stress and malnutrition increase the tendency of endotoxin to leak into the bloodstream. Thyroid hormone, by increasing the turnover of cholesterol and its conversion into the protective steroids, is a major factor in keeping the inflammatory processes under control.”

“Estrogen makes the toxic-mediator-producing cells in the liver hypersensitive to LPS–15 times more sensitive than normal.”

“When estrogen overlaps with endotoxin (as it tends to do), multiple organ failure is the result.”

“The maladaptive sequence, starting from stress or hypothyroidism, would typically involve increased absorption of endotoxin, leading to interference with mitochondrial respiration, a shift to fat oxidation, inflammation, and the increase of a wide range of stress hormones. Each of these happens to interfere with the production of progesterone, leading to increased LH.”

"Things that increase absorption of endotoxin–exercise, estrogen, ethanol–cause HDL to rise. Chylomicrons and VLDL also absorb, bind, and help to eliminate endotoxins. All sorts of stress and malnutrition increase the tendency of endotoxin to leak into the bloodstream. Thyroid hormone, by increasing the turnover of cholesterol and its conversion into the protective steroids, is a major factor in keeping the inflammatory processes under control.”

The basic problem is usually that a low thyroid person has slow digestion. And so foods are feeding bacteria in the intestine. Bacteria produce endotoxin. And if your intestine is irritated and hypothyroid, you absorb that endotoxin into the system along with some allergens. And so the combination of low thyroid and slow digestion will cause various inflammatory degenerative processes. And when you're low thyroid, you aren't converting cholesterol to the protective hormones. And so if your cholesterol is very high, that means you're probably deficient in those protective hormones like progesterone and pregnenolone and DHEA."

“Bacterial endotoxin increases serotonin release from the intestine, and increases its synthesis in the brain and liver. It also stimulates its release from platelets, and reduces the lungs’ ability to destroy it. The formation of serotonin in the intestine is also stimulated by the lactate, propionate and butyrate that are formed by bacteria fermenting fiber and starch, but these bacteria also produce endotoxin. The inflammation-producing effects of lactate, serotonin, and endotoxin are overlapping, additive, and sometimes synergistic, along with histamine, nitric oxide, bradykinin, and the cytokines.”

“In the presence of bacterial endotoxin, respiratory energy production fails in the cells lining the intestine. Nitric oxide is probably the main mediator of this effect.”

“Endotoxin, produced by bacteria, mainly in the intestine, disrupts energy production, and promotes maladaptive inflammation.”

“One nearly ubiquitous source of inappropriate excitation and energy depletion is the endotoxin, bacterial lipopolysaccharides absorbed from the intestine.”

“The liver is the major source of the acute phase proteins, and it is constantly burdened by toxins absorbed from the bowel; disinfection of the bowel is known to accelerate recovery from stress.”

"One of the effects of endotoxin that leads to prolonged cellular excitation is its inhibition of the glucuronidation system, since this inhibition allows excitatory estrogen to accumulate."

“The amyloids and lipoproteins are powerfully responsive to bacterial endotoxin, LPS, and their structural feature that binds it, the “pleated sheet” structure, appears to also be what allows the amyloids to form amorphous deposits and fibrils under some circumstances."

“By some tests, the “prion” resembles endotoxin. One of the interesting developments of the prion theory is that a particular structure that appears when the prion becomes toxic, the “beta pleated sheet,” is also a feature of most of the normal proteins that can form amyloid, and that this structure is directly related to binding and eliminating the bacterial LPS. If the prion theory is correct about the conversion of a normal protein into the pleated sheet, it isn’t necessarily correct about the incurability of the condition. The innate immune system should be able to inactivate the prion just as it does the bacterial endotoxin, if we remove the conditions that cause the innate immune reaction to amplify the inflammation beyond control.”

"...some studies have found considerable life extension by keeping the intestine free of bacteria. At the beginning of the 20th century, Elie Metchnikof believed, basing his ideas on comparative biology, that intestinal toxins caused aging by disrupting the immune and endocrine systems’ functions in tissue maintenance and renewal. He noticed that the intestine of short-lived herbivore such as rabbits had a strong odor of putrefaction and a great variety of bacterial species, but that the intestines of long-lived birds such as parrots and ravens had no unpleasant smell, even when he had fed the ravens with rotting meat, and contained only a few species of bacteria."

“Mechnikov was right in seeing bacterial toxins from the intestine as a cause of aging, and he was on the right track in trying to introduce a more beneficial bacterial ecology into the intestine by using sour milk. The lactobacilli do have some protective effects, but the lactic acid that they produce turns out to function as an alarm signal, which accelerates the same aging processes that the other bacterial endotoxins produce.”

“The gerontologist, V.V. Frolkis, recently found that mice lived 43% longer than animals on the standard diet when they periodically had activated charcoal added to their food. This is the clearest evidence I have seen that “bowel toxins” make a major contribution to the aging process.”