Another Book on the Perils of Corporate Science

The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Death

David R Montgomery and Anne Bikle

Book Review

The Hidden Half of Nature explores parallels between the microbiome* (see The Care and Feeding of Gut Bacteria) that inhabits the human intestine and the microbiome surrounding the roots of healthy plants. As in humans, the plant microbiom (aka the rhizosphere) co-evolved with higher plants to perform functions they couldn’t perform for themselves. In other words, the rhizosphere is just essential to plant health and growth as our microbiome is to our own health. Sadly industrial agriculture (particularly synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides) have been just as harmful to the rhizosphere and plant health as the corporatization of food production and medicine has been to the human microbiome and human health.

Montgomery and Bikle describe in elegant detail the research into the rich exudates plants secrete into the soil to attract helpful bacteria and fungi. In turn, the latter produce a broad range of chemicals that promote plant growth, as well as forming a defensive wall of antimicrobial compounds (most antibiotics used in western medicine are derived from these compounds) that protect the plant against pathogens.

This book also traces the history of our scientific understanding of microbes in the development of early vaccines, antibiotics and synthetic fertilizers. Like many important scientific discoveries, the process for manufacturing synthetic nitrogen fertilizer grew out of the war industry. The production of dynamite (ie nitroglycerine) employs the same chemical pathways as the production of synthetic fertilizer. Thus in the lead up to World War II, both the British and the US government required farmers to switch from organic to synthetic fertilizers due to the easy conversion of fertilizer factories to munitions factories and vice versa.

After the war, the heavy use of synthetic fertilizers would lead to the systematic destruction of healthy soil on western farms. As they gradually lost the friendly bacteria that protected them, they because increasingly susceptible to pests and required heavier and heavier use of synthetic pesticides that totally wiped out the rhizosphere.

I was very surprised to learn the basic principles of organic farming were identified in the late 19^th century and abandoned due to government and corporate pressure.

The role of probiotics in human health was identified even earlier – when Turkish visitors to the court of France’s Francis I cured him of life threatening diarrhea by offering him some yogurt.

Envoys from the Ottoman Empire were also the first to introduce inoculation to Europe in 1716. Inoculation against infectious diseases was first introduced in the US by African slaves.

Western Medicine: Still Stuck in the 20th Century

Origins

well.org (2014)

Film Review

In brief, Origins is a film about saving the planet by improving your diet and lifestyle. The filmmakers assert that a healthier diet will enable people to think more clearly about the imminent crises confronting civilization. While I totally disagree with the premise – I don’t believe real change is possible without confronting corporate corruption and growing inequality – I liked the film. It offers the clearest explanation yet of the fundamental role of the microbiome* in human health and the rhizophere** in plant health.

Western medicine, as currently practiced, has become totally obsolete owing to its inability to view the human body as a holistic integrated unit. The end result is that roughly half of us are in really poor health. While I disagree with the premise of the film, I’m willing to concede that many of us aren’t healthy or fit enough to tackle major social or political change.

A secondary premise of the film is that we need to fundamentally rethink the way we use technology – mainly because we’re systematically poisoning ourselves through air pollution and toxic endocrine disruptors that mimic estrogen in our bodies. This heavy estrogen effect is a major factor in an epidemic of breast, prostate and other cancers, as well as infertility, obesity and anxiety/depression.

My favorite part of the documentary concerns the microbiome, which turns out to be primary source of our immunity. Owing to the overuse of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture (in livestock feed), most of us have experienced a mass extinction of our intestinal bacteria. This, in turn, plays an even bigger role than toxic chemicals in diseases triggered by inflammation, such as obesity, cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and autoimmune illnesses.

Origins goes on to stress the importance of vaginal birth and breast feeding in establishing a healthy microbiome in infants and the avoidance of antibiotics, antibiotic soaps and commercial household cleaners and toxic chemicals in keeping it that way. Letting kids play in the dirt is another important source of beneficial bacteria. As are are fermented foods and fresh (unprocessed) chemical free foods.

I was also pleased to see the filmmakers brutally debunk the low fat, high sugar, high carbohydrate diet*** Food Inc and western medicine have been trying to sell us for the last fifty years. This is the number one reason half of Americans suffer from “diabesity” (aka metabolic syndrome), even though many of them may not realize it yet.

To their credit, thousands of doctors (according to filmmakers) are taking their patients off GMO foods, resulting in rapid relief of allergies, chronic illnesses and infertility.

I was also pleased to see the comparison filmmakers make between the soil rhizosphere and the gut microbiome. While we’ve been destroying our intestinal bacteria with antibiotics, Food Inc has been systematically destroying essential soil bacteria with pesticides, herbicides and GMOs.

Citing a recent UN study, Origins explodes the myth that GMO technology is the only solution to world hunger. According to the UN, we could double current crop yields in ten years simply by switching to organic farming methods that restore the health and integrity of our soil.

Ignore the background music (I hate documentaries with soppy background music). It’s worth putting up with for the excellent section on diet.

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* Microbiome, as defined in this film, refers to the millions of intestinal bacteria that are essential to healthy digestion and immunity.

** The rhizosphere is the narrow region of soil that is directly influenced by root secretions and associated soil microorganisms.

***For a great book summarizing the research that debunks the low fat diet, see Why the Low Fat Diet Makes You Fat and Gives You Heart Disease, Cancer and Tooth Decay