The Book Page -- Nothing About The Bakken -- July 20, 2022

I have just finished Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death, c. 2022.

Finished in the sense that I've turned all the pages and read most of the words in/on the first 178 pages, but then scanned to the end, p. 284, where the appendices begin/began.

I cannot recommend this book too anyone who does not have at least an undergraduate degree in biochemistry. An undergraduate degree in biology will not fill the bill. It’s very, very difficult to read.

It will be one of my top shelf books that I will return to often. Despite a very challenging subject, it's always a joy to read Nick Lane's writing.

It's a book about the Krebs cycle, and thus ultimately about mitochondria.

It's too bad I can't recommend it to my readers in general. I have an 80-year-old reader who just two days ago e-mailed me, and I guess, asked me, about the aging process, and why some folks are fortunate to live well into their nineties, and others, not so much. 

Ironically, for lack of a better word, it all started with my rambling about military medicine. He and I were on the same page with regard to military medicine and he cited examples of several of his military "lifers" who did well by the VA system. Maybe more on his examples later. I always enjoy a good narrative involving a US Marine, the best of the best in the US military.

I provided a lengthy reply to his question / comments / observations regarding aging. 

So, I was quite happy -- and quite surprised -- that the sixth chapter, the penultimate chapter just before the epilogue, was all about the aging process.

Nick Lane argues that the aging process has everything to do with the Krebs cycle and mitochondria, and nothing to do with our non-maternal genes, or maternal genes for that matter, in the rest of our cells. The mitochondria and the mitochondrial genes are all inherited from our mother, going all the way back to Mitochondrial Eve.

Page after page, paragraph after paragraph, sentence after sentence, the science is so challenging to defy any understanding, but it -- aging -- all goes back to mitochondria -- where cellular respiration takes place and the Krebs cycle 

Note: In Canada and the U.S. , the preferred spelling is aging. British usage favours the variant ageing, which is also accepted in Canada. Nick Lane is British.

Just when one is about to give up on the writing Nick Lane summarizes it on page 232, the very end of chapter five before the chapter on aging:

To answer your question on aging, I can do no better than statistics. 

Ageing itself raises our risks, by switching metabolism towards aerobic glycolysis, promoting cellular growth. But clearly this state iis stable over decades. We are then at the mercy of our own lives -- unfortunate genes, one ciigarett too many, poor diet, bad sunburn, exhaust fumes, viral infection: sharp focus for the command 'grow!' set in a permissive metabolic context. 

If my argument in this chapter is right, the best we can do is to keep our mitochondria active. Keep exercising. Breath deeply. Eat carefully. Caloric restriction. Don't fall back on fermentation but oxidise NADH in your mitochondria as far as possible. Keep your Krebs cycle moving forwards (sic). 

Nothing is failsafe, but there's no doubt that regular aerobic exercise and a healthy diet -- caloric restriction -- will help you to protect you against cancer (and, yes, past your 80s cancer is perhaps the greatest risk of dying over which you have some control). 

There's irony in my advice, for I am asking you to nurture your mitochondria. Don't let cell respiration run down, which is the underlying cause of cancer as we age. Not because our cells revert to some degenerate state, but because declining respiration perturbs the Krebs cycle. 

As for me, I was in the pool yesterday for three hours, swimming the whole time. Slowly of course, I could sense happy mitochondria.

By the way, the Apple Watch and the Apple culture:

• closing your rings on your Apple Watch: stay active during the day
• breath deeply: zen and the Apple Way
• eat carefully, caloric restriction: sushi

Nope, nothing to do with the Bakken.

Disclaimer: In a long note like this there will be typographical errors. In addition, my editor and proofreader is out of town and on vacation for two weeks.