From Dr. Lauren Deville - Naturopathic Doctor

Image by Jo Luijten from Pixabay

I argued here that the “vital force,” that intangible element that keeps our souls tethered to our bodies, may actually be electromagnetic energy. There are (so far) two identified sets of body-wide channels through which such frequencies appear to flow: the perineural system (peripheral to the nervous system), and the acupuncture meridians. These are analogous to the body’s wiring system—much like the wiring inside the walls of your house enables you to plug in an appliance anywhere with an outlet that connects to that wiring.

How might this system on the cellular level interface with the body-wide “wiring” system of electromagnetism, though?

The Membrane as a CapacitorOn the cellular level, energy (electrons) from oxygen, food and water get extracted by the mitochondria—the organelles inside every cell (except red blood cells) that produce ATP. If there’s more energy coming in than we can use (we’re eating too much and not exercising, for example, or perhaps our metabolism is slower than it should be), then the body stores any excess in the adipose tissue (fat cells). When later, we have a demand for more energy than we’re consuming, the body transports stored triglycerides into the mitochondria, one free fatty acid at a time. Each fatty acid can produce 129 ATP, compared to the 38 ATP derived from each glucose molecule. So fat is a very efficient way to store energy, which can then power the cell.

But that’s all very localized. If the “vital force” involves the flow of electromagnetic energy systemically, how might that coordinate activity on the cellular level?

According to Jerry Tennant in “Healing is Voltage,” excess circulating voltage can get stored for later use in the cell membranes, like a battery. This is because the inside and the outside of the cell are both characterized by highly conductive ionic fluid, separated by an insulating material that keeps them apart (the fatty cell membrane). This definition alone means that the cell membrane is a capacitor: it stores electrical energy.

The Membrane Conducts ElectricityBut the cell membrane isn’t just a pure insulator; if it were, the energy flowing throughout the meridians and perineural systems wouldn’t be able to actually do anything on the cellular level. The membrane isn’t just an impenetrable lipid bilayer, but it has receptors and channels embedded throughout, allowing signals from the outside in, and inside out. This makes the membrane conductive, both biochemically and electrically. As Dr Robert Becker noted in “The Body Electric,” many parts of the cell support semiconduction, quite efficiently (just as the acupuncture and perineural systems do).

It’s not just the biochemical channels and pores that contribute to this feat, either; even the membrane’s elasticity has intrinsic electrical potential, such that when the membrane receives a mechanical stimulation, it can convert this into an electrical signal, called the flexoelectric effect.

Not too surprisingly, then, electromagnetic frequencies can directly affect the cell membrane, too.

The Membrane Responds to Electromagnetic FrequenciesIn fact, electromagnetic frequencies may be a far more common, and certainly a far more efficient stimulus for coordinating cell behavior than are the far more inherently localized biochemical stimuli.

At least certain membrane enzymes respond to specific electromagnetic signals by performing chemical work, provided the signal is the appropriate frequency and amplitude.

This is hypothesized to occur on a far broader scale within the cell too, changing the conformation of membrane receptors in response to electromagnetic signals. Vibrations from an electromagnetic signal could and should affect not just one or two membrane proteins, but the entire interconnected cell membrane, and everything anchored to it: all the proteins, and anything in the cell’s interior that is likewise connected to the cytoskeleton. (Picture a subwoofer sitting on a table strewn with debris. Everything connected to that table will resonate.)

Membrane lipids are also known to be diamagnetic, meaning they align themselves with externally applied magnetic fields. Even a small external magnetic field can change the membrane’s electrical potential, and thus affect the activities within the cell. And incidentally, of all of the organelles inside the cell, the mitochondria are the most sensitive to magnetic signals.

The Cell Membrane is a Liquid CrystalMany of the cell membrane’s remarkable properties stem from the fact that it can be classified as a liquid crystal. The definition of a liquid crystal is one that possesses no positional order (it’s a liquid, so things can still move around), but it does have orientational order (the molecules line up in an orderly fashion). Lipids in general typically self-order themselves into liquid crystalline patterns, and cell membranes are made up of a variety of different fatty acids.

The water inside your cells is also in a hydrogel, or liquid crystalline form.

This matters because the very coherence of the pattern of molecular alignment in liquid crystals allows electromagnetic waves, or vibrations, to have a much more long-ranging effect—again, picture the subwoofer on the table strewn with debris. The debris connected to that table will vibrate in rhythm with the beat, whereas objects not connected to the table may not move at all, or only very little.

Another place you might have heard of a liquid crystal is in LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screens, such as in your television, computer, iPad, or smart phone. The responsiveness of such liquid crystals to electromagnetic fields is the reason why these technologies work. In the same way, your cell membranes (and any water in your body in the liquid crystalline hydrogel form) are exquisitely sensitive to electromagnetic energy–which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending upon the frequency.

Your Cell Membranes Do Most of Your Body’s WorkDr Bruce Lipton sums this up as follows: the cell membrane is a liquid crystal semiconductor that essentially functions as a biological computer chip, interacting with and responding to the information in its environment, and in turn inducing (or suppressing) gene expression (epigenetics).

The cell membranes appear to manage and coordinate all the rest of the biological activities inside the cells, and because of this, they consume most of our body’s energy.

The UpshotSo far as I can tell, then, ATP seems to supply intracellular power, while the electromagnetic “vital force” flowing through the body as a whole stimulates the cell membrane, coordinating intracellular activity and storing any excess energy in the membrane itself. This would enable the membrane to continue to do its job (for awhile at least), in case somehow it finds itself cut off from the intercellular power supply. From a Chinese Medicine standpoint, this might be due to qi stagnation, though I’d imagine various structural obstructions might block the flow as well.

This certainly highlights not only the importance of keeping our cells charged up, but also the importance of keeping our cell membranes healthy, by consuming real and unadulterated saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids.

The Mighty Cell Membrane