Here are the .mp3 audio transcript and .pdf handout for the lecture that I gave at the 2008 New York State Naturopathic Association Conference. The audio is rather large for the Internet (40 mb), so be patient:

Click here for the audio file

The handouts are in the form of a Adobe Acrobat file (pdf) so you can work through the lecture exactly as it was presented.

Click here for the lecture handouts

If you right-click and choose "Save As" you can download the files to your hard drive. If you find this information interesting, consider burning the lecture and handout files onto a CD and passing it along to friends and colleagues.

I had a chance to visit T. Boone Pickens website, where he has unveiled a plan to develop contingency energy policies involving a blend of natural gas, wind and solar as a sort of 'stop-gap' measure to halt the increasing importation of foreign oil.

Whereas I think he is onto something, his plan may actually not be big enough to really make a difference. I quickly did some simple calculations on the energy generating capacity of solar cell technology (per total surface area) given its placement in any environment sufficiently 'sunny' enough to power the solar cells for a minimum of five hours per day.

Based upon published data it is possible power the entire electrical grid of the United States at almost twice its current level by simply creating a 'National Solar Farm' approximately 100 miles by 100 miles (10,000 square miles) in size.

The total land space required is symbolized by the blue rectangle on the above map. Placing this solar farm anywhere in the light blue area guarantees a minimum of 5 hours of sunlight in winter, 6 in summer --very ample amounts.

Fortuitously, the majority of this area is some of the most hostile territory to be found in the continental US, so there would not be any significant displacement of people or fauna.

Solar panels are not inexpensive, and one would think that a 100 by 100 mile wide area would be prohibitively expensive. But the raw materials of solar panels (silicon and cadmium) are themselves quite inexpensive and abundant and a government effort on par with the Manhattan Project should be able to use economies of scale to drop the production costs.

This would have added ecological advantages. A lot of electricity is generated locally, which brings many known carcinogens into densely populated areas.

Opponents might be argue that by generating electricity from a singular, highly centralized location a lot of the juice would be lost due to overall 'low conductivity' of the majority of the national electrical grid. However, this might also be an opportunity to develop the next level of superconducting devices alongside of a National Solar Farm and reform the National Electrical Grid while we're fixing things anyway.

Been very busy with the redesign of the NAP website. Part of the problem is that I am Perl/PP/Unix centered and the NAP software and server are ASP Microsoft .NET. No matter, I enjoy learning this kind of stuff.

Generated quite a bit of new content. NAP needed simple FDA compliant explanations for the GenoType Diet formulas, and I wanted to release some additional information on the GenoType profiles that had been prepared for the book but not used. So I combined both jobs these into six monographs:

• The Hunter
• The Gatherer
• The Teacher
• The Explorer
• The Warrior
• The Nomad

Enjoy.

1.

What does The GenoType Diet, Sudoku, and musical harmonics have in common? They are all based on matrix relationships; tables (really arrays) in which the constituents relate to each other in particular ways.

Many years ago, I took a summer course in computer music composition with Charles Dodge. Dodge, primarily known for a piece he created out of the Earth's magnetic field, was a gifted and supportive teacher, who in no short time clued me into the fact that I was no composer, but rather something that he termed a 'musical systems pre-programmer.' In short, the guy who wrote the programs that composers used to make music.

One of the things he was working on that I found especially fascinating was a concept that he called 'harmonic foldover', the idea that at certain points the sonorities ('resonance') of certain base frequencies could be manipulated to produce new harmonics, which would be created a precise intervals.

One of the most striking things that you hear when people talk about foods and diets, is who often they express their preference in musical terms.

"I try to eat in harmony with my local agriculture."

"I'm really in tune with this diet."

"A high protein diet really resonates with me. I can feel more balanced."

Working on the GTD food choices, I often reminisced about Dodge's theories. Although I've long forgotten his exact modus operandi I suspected that one could do this by using a series of mathematical tools called linear transformations, especially what are called Fourier transformations. Any example of a Fourier transformation would be to split up a radio frequency into its more basic fundamentals. Most of these functions work on matrices, not terribly different than those found in any Sudoku puzzle.

Here is a Latin Square, a matrix where each number occurs exactly once in each row and exactly once in each column.

The early Chinese mathematicians also had something called "Magic Square' which did something similar.

Again, art mimics life.

Fast Fourier transformations of matrix data are useful for many things, from the symmetry analysis of numbers and determining trajectories of comets. Because matrix data falls into the realm of linear algebra, transformations of the data always leave behind parts which have not been changed, the direction of the change, and how much change has occurred. These are called the Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors of the transformation. I love Eigenvalues, because they so easily plug into the multivariate characterizations that comprise the GenoTypes.

Now for the mimic part: 'Matrix' is derived from the Latin word matrices for 'womb'. Embryos are interested in symmetry, since it is an index of stability in their developmental environment and subsequent fitness. And, it would not be unkind to describe your journey through life from birth on as a type of epigenetic trajectory.

'All that openeth the matrix is mine.' --Ex. xxxiv. 19.

With this type of analysis, I can see that the future development of The GenoType Diet system will occur by way of food relationships, not individual foods. Put a live food, a piece of fish and a carbohydrate into that Latin Square and you will see what I mean*.

I described it at a recent working lunch for the NAP folks as 'visiting a deep cavern, having a normal conversation and soon realizing that all the words, their tones and inflections were blending into a constant drone of overtones as echoes and reverberations of each prior word are added to the base sound ---but a drone that is as identifiable as the voices of the people speaking. Now imagine that by being able to hear that sound, you could add more words and noises to make the overtone more pleasing and enjoyable.

That would be Geno Harmony.

* And maybe also see why the GTD products have names like 'Activator' and "Catalyst'.

2. A recent blog entry features this statement:

Frankly, I'm finding that naturopathic education is still leaving a lot to be desired (amazingly, they don't teach nutrigenomics; have one class each in genetics and immunology; and do not learn any statistics or bioinformantics). I know that there are the ‘nuts and bolts' to teach, such as the anatomy and physiology, but it is surprising just how little space these students have for the real aspects of naturopathic practice, since they are so busy learning and memorizing a lot of things which will allow them to pass a board exam, but could more easily be simply looked up while in practice.

Which caused some upset with one of the clinic interns, who felt that this might give the impression that the education that they are receiving is not up to standard. I know my tone was a bit harsh, and I do apologize for that.

But like Laurie Anderson once said, "It is not the bullet that kills you; it's the hole."

I don't think naturopathic education is sub-standard. Far from it. NDs graduating from CNME approved schools are very highly trained medical professionals. My gripe (and it is only my opinion) is that the education is insufficiently non-standard, and perhaps unnecessarily formalized. But one should not take these things too far. Decrying and dissecting your education is the official national pastime of naturopathic medicine.

The John Bastyr College of Naturopathic Medicine, graduating class of 1982.

Twelve years ago when I was writing Eat Right For Your Type I used to Google (although there was no actual Google at the time; I used Excite) the phrases personalized medicine and personalized nutrition. At the time there were virtually no references. Now they number in the tens of thousands. However, Eat Right For Your Type was among the first books to ever use this concept.

With the The GenoType Diet, I've been instead googling the phrase Intergenerational Medicine and seeing about as much. Mark my words: in ten years you will see this phrase also appearing in the tens if not hundreds of thousands.

I often quote these citations when I lecture. Of course it would be most interesting to eventually learn what the author of the last abstract might consider an enriching experience.

Environmental influences can be inherited even without any mutations in the genes themselves. If genetic mutations are ‘typos' and relatively easy to test for, epigenetic changes are analogous to the formatting of the text (e.g. font, size, and color) and are much less well understood.

• Montague T. A New Way to Inherit Environmental Harm. Synthesis/Regeneration 39 (Winter 2006)

Mother rats exposed to hormone-mimicking chemicals during pregnancy gave birth to four successive generations of male offspring with significantly reduced fertility. Only the first generation of mothers was exposed to a toxin, yet four generations later the toxic effect could still be detected .

• M. Anway, A. Cupp, M. Uzumcu, and M. Skinner, Epigenetic Transgenerational Actions of Endocrine Disruptors and Male Fertility, Science Vol. 308, June 3, 2005, pp. 1466–1469.

Conceivably the cancer you may get today may have been caused by your grandmother's exposure to an industrial poison 50 years ago, even though your grandmother's genes were not changed by the exposure… or the mercury you're eating today in fish may not harm you directly, but may harm your grandchildren. These inherited traits can continue to influence the onset of diseases like diabetes, obesity, mental illness and heart disease, from generation to generation.

• Montague T. A New Way to Inherit Environmental Harm. Synthesis/Regeneration 39 (Winter 2006)

Global decrease in methylation levels is commonly observed in aging cells, as well as in neoplasia (early event.) The causes of this hypomethylation are not known. Contributes to chromosomal instability in cancer and to increased expression of selected affected genes. Unlike defective genes, which are damaged for life, methylated genes can be demethylated. And, methyl tags that are knocked off can be regained via nutrients, drugs, and enriching experiences.

• Asim K. Duttaroy Evolution, Epigenetics, and Maternal Nutrition 2006 Darwin Day Celebration.