Earthing_ The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? Part 4

Autism Brain inflammation is present in most autistic children.

Cancer Inflammation contributes to free radicals, tumor growth, and inhibits the body's defense against abnormal cells.

Cardiovascular disease Inflammation causes thick, unhealthy blood and arterial disease, leading to blockage and plaque and increased risk of dangerous clots in the blood vessels that feed the heart and brain; inflammation also damages heart valves.

Diabetes, types 1 & 2 Type 1 diabetes, inflammation induces the immune system to destroy pancreatic beta cells; type 2 diabetes, fat cells cause the release of inflammatory messengers, leading to insulin resistance.

Fibromyalgia Inflammatory compounds present in the body at an elevated level.

Common intestinal disorders Crohn's disease, irritable bowel, diverticulitis, and other intestinal problems involve inflammation that causes pain, interference with digestion and a.s.similation of nutrients, and damage to the sensitive lining of the digestive tract.

Kidney failure Inflammation restricts circulation and damages kidney cells that filter blood.

Lupus Inflammatory compounds spark an autoimmune attack.

Multiple sclerosis Inflammatory compounds attack the nervous system.

Pain Activation of pain receptors, transmission and modulation of pain signals, and hypersensitivity of nervous system are all one continuum of inflammation and the inflammatory response.

Pancreat.i.tis Inflammation induces pancreatic cell injury.

Psoriasis and eczema Inflammation-based skin disorders.

*ALS is often called Lou Gehrig's disease

ENTER EARTHING: THE MISSING LINK.

The land and seas of planet Earth are alive with an endless and constantly replenished supply of electrons. By making direct contact with the surface of the planet-the skin of our bodies touching the skin of the Earth-our conductive bodies naturally equalize with the Earth. Figuratively speaking, we refill the electron level in our tank that has become low.

How do we know that the body absorbs those electrons? There are a number of ways we know.

One is common sense. The Earth is negatively charged. It has an endless supply of negative-charged free electrons. Anytime you have two conductive objects and they make contact-such as your bare feet and the ground-electrons will flow from the place where they are abundant to the place where there are fewer of them. The electrical potential of the two objects will thus equalize. That's grounding. Similarly, when you stick a ground rod in the Earth, it allows the electrons to flow from the Earth via a wire into an object. It could be a refrigerator, the shielding around a cable TV system, or you. Your body is conductive like the fridge.

If you have a battlefront with positive-charged free radicals running amok inside your body, guess what's going to happen when you make contact with the Earth?

Big negative-charged Earth overwhelms little, positive-charged free radicals.

Science backs up the common sense. Science tells us that the body is one dynamic conductor of electrical impulses, or in the words of biophysicist James Oschman, "the living matrix." Cells contain an internal framework known as the cytoskeleton that connects all parts of the cell, from the nucleus to the outer membrane. This "scaffolding" includes molecules that conduct energy and information inside each cell and outward to the surrounding environment, and in the opposite direction, from the environment to the innermost parts of the cell and nucleus. Similarly, the surrounding environment, from your head to your toes, contains an extracellular network of conductive collagen and other proteins that are "hardwired" to cell membranes. Thus, the living matrix inside and outside cells provides a body-wide network for antioxidant electrons, a pathway hooking up all parts of the body, including the nervous system and all sensory receptors, with all parts of every cell, including the genome in every cell. This pervasive system has extensions into every nook and cranny of the body and really represents, when you think about it, the largest organ system in the body. It is the "stuff" of all living structures.

When you think of yourself as an "antenna," as the French agronomist Matteo Tavera describes all living things (we discussed his ideas in Chapter 2), you can see how we fit neatly into a universal energy continuum. We, and the stars, are bathed in it.

Medical science utilizes the concept of the living matrix in a very practical and helpful way. Doctors use electrophysiological and biomedical instrumentation such as EKGs, EEGs (electroencepthalograms), and EMGs (electromyograms) as diagnostic tools to monitor the electrical activities of the heart, brain, and muscles. These devices follow certain conductive pathways existing between internal organs and the body skin surface, and vice versa. The readings from the interior follow pathways to the skin surface, where they are picked up by electrode patches and led to the measuring devices. Pacemakers, defibrillators, and electroacupuncture demonstrate how this conductivity works in reverse: from the skin to the tissues and organs inside the body.

Michael Jordan and the Living Matrix Think of the living matrix as a kind of warp-speed communication network inside your body.

n.o.bel Prize winner Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the Hungarian biochemist who first identified vitamin C and was among the first to apply theories of quantum physics to the understanding of cancer, was always a scientist ahead of his time. He laid out the vision of a high-speed communication system in the body-he called it "electronic biology"-back in 1941. He said, "Life is too rapid and subtle to be explained by slow-moving chemical reactions and nerve impulses. The proteins are the stage upon which the drama of life unfolds. The actors can be none other than small and highly mobile units such as electrons and protons."

To ill.u.s.trate the blazing fast speed of communication within the living matrix, Dr. Oschman uses the a.n.a.logy of Michael Jordan, one of professional basketball's greatest players. It is the last game and the last seconds of the basketball playoffs. The game is tied, and of course the ball comes to Jordan. In an instant he springs into mid-air and launches the ball toward the basket. As the buzzer sounds and the game is over, the ball drops through the hoop. Jordan's buzzer-beating shot wins the championship for his team. As the fans go wild, Jordan looks into the TV cameras, smiles, and shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, "Don't ask me how I did that!"

Electrons are the smallest possible negative charges of electricity. It is well established that negative charges (electrons) are attracted to positive charges (free radicals). Connecting the body to the Earth automatically enables the conductive tissues of the body's living matrix to become charged with the Earth's free electrons. When this occurs, excess or residual immune response free radicals (which are positively charged) suddenly have, as the old song goes, the object of their affection-a readily available supply of free electrons to bond with and reduce their oxidative and inflammatory mode. They are neutralized, quenched, satiated, and satisfied. Kind of like giving kids the keys to the ice cream store or opening the blood bank to Dracula.

As a result, the addiction of immune system-produced free radicals to oxidize healthy tissue to obtain their fix of missing electrons naturally disappears. The rampage is naturally inhibited, and with it the underlying mechanism of chronic inflammation and autoimmune disease. The body naturally conducts, and becomes charged with, the Earth's free electrons; that is, it equalizes with and maintains the natural electrical potential of the Earth. The end result, our observations and research indicate, is that the reconnection prevents or reduces chronic inflammation and consistently speeds recovery from exhaustion, acute trauma, and minor injuries. You'll read how that plays out in the very dramatic stories we've collected in Part Four of the book.

Typically, there's a quick reduction in inflammation-related aches and pain. Some acute headaches can vanish within minutes. The intensity of chronic pains often lessens significantly in twenty to forty minutes.

The effect of Earthing on inflammation and pain was dramatically demonstrated in a series of case studies conducted with thermography during 2004 and 2005. Thermography, also known as infrared imaging, is a noninvasive clinical technique that a.n.a.lyzes the skin surface temperatures as a reflection of normal or abnormal human physiology. The technique utilizes sophisticated computerized technology to translate temperature data and produce an image that is then evaluated for signs of possible disease or injury. The procedure has been around for more than thirty years and featured in thousands of medical studies. Among other things, it is widely used to help diagnose breast cancer, diabetes, nervous system and metabolic disorders, injuries, headaches and pain syndromes, neck and back problems, and arterial disease.

William Amalu, D.C., president of the International Academy of Clinical Thermography, performed Earthing studies on twenty patients with a variety of complaints, including chronic myofascial pain syndrome, muscular strains, ligamentous sprains, peripheral neuropathies, carpal tunnel syndrome, inflammatory joint conditions, Lyme's disease, and chronic sinusitis. The subjects were either grounded with conductive electrode patches in his office or slept on grounded bed pads at home. The results showed, through dramatic pictures, a major and rapid impact on inflammation and pain. A picture is worth a thousand words, so please refer to the color images (Plates 1-7) under section ent.i.tled "THERMAL & PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES OF THE EFFECTS OF EARTHING", showing some of these changes.

Some patients experienced improvement in just one session. Within two to four weeks (of two to three half-hour treatments weekly), up to 80 percent improvement occurred in the cases that were followed up (60 percent of cases were followed). With ongoing grounding over weeks and months, the patients continued to get relief, feel better, and in some cases, their symptoms vanished altogether.

"The moment your foot touches the Earth, or you connect to the Earth through a wire, your physiology changes," James Oschman says. "An immediate normalization begins. And an anti-inflammatory switch is turned on. People stay inflamed because they never connect with the Earth, the source of free electrons, which can neutralize the free radicals in the body that cause disease and cellular destruction."

THERMAL & PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES OF THE EFFECTS OF EARTHING.

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Plate 1. Inflammation as seen through infrared imaging. Thermal imaging cameras record tiny changes in the temperature of the skin to create a color-coded image map. Because tissue damage causes increased heat, abnormally hot areas indicate inflammation. The infrared photos shown here were taken only thirty minutes apart-before (left) and after grounding (right). They ill.u.s.trate a rapid resolution of inflammation and help explain the impact of Earthing on chronic pain, stiffness, and a variety of symptoms.

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Plate 2. The patient here was an eighty-five-year-old male who complained of intense, left lower back pain and right shoulder pain that interfered with sleep, and waking stiff and sore. Prolonged medical treatment had achieved poor results. After two nights of sleeping grounded, he reported 50 percent less pain and 75 percent less stiffness and soreness when walking. Image (left) shows intense areas of inflammation and pain, denoted by arrows. Image (right), taken after second night, shows return to normal thermal symmetry. After four weeks, patient reported total resolution of back and shoulder pain with only occasional mild stiffness. "I have my life back," he said.

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Plate 3. Infrared images are those of a sixty-five-year-old woman with chronic thigh, knee, and shin pain on the right leg, with ankle pain and swelling of the left foot. The patient complained of insomnia, nonrestful sleep, lack of sleep interfering with daily functioning, sleepiness during the day, pain interfering with sleep, leg achiness during sleep, and waking stiff and sore. She had been on prolonged medical treatment with poor results. After four nights of sleeping grounded on a conductive bed pad, the patient reported a 90 percent reduction in pain, a 50 percent improvement in restful sleep, and a 50 percent reduction in insomnia, sleepiness during the day, and waking stiff and sore. Steady continuous improvement was reported at a forty-day follow-up. Images (top) show the lower extremities taken before grounding. Arrows denote most significant areas of inflammation and correspond precisely with subject's areas of complaint. Images (bottom) were taken after four nights of sleeping grounded. Note the considerable reduction in inflammation and return toward a normal thermal pattern.

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Plate 4. Infrared images are those of a thirty-three-year-old woman who had a gymnastics injury at age fifteen. The patient had a long history of chronic right knee pain, swelling, and instability, and was unable to stand for long periods. Simple actions, such as driving, increased the symptoms. She needed to sleep with a pillow between her knees to decrease the pain. On-and-off medical treatment and physical therapy over the years provided minimal relief. Images (top) were taken in walking position to show the inside of both knees. The arrow points to exact location of patient's pain and shows significant inflammation. Images (bottom) were taken thirty minutes after being grounded with an electrode patch. The patient reported a mild reduction in pain. Note significant reduction of inflammation in knee area. After six days of grounding, she reported a 50 percent reduction in pain and said that she could now stand for longer periods without pain and no longer needed a pillow between her legs when she slept. After four weeks of treatment, she felt good enough to play soccer and for the first time in fifteen years felt no instability and little pain. By twelve weeks, she said her pain had diminished by nearly 90 percent and with no swelling. For the first time in many years, she was able to waterski. Six months after initial treatment, she completed running a half-marathon.

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Plate 5. This set of infrared images relates to inflammation in the forearm tendons of a dental hygienist suffering from bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome. She was receiving three workers' compensation physical therapy treatments and three chiropractic treatments per week. Her symptoms included finger pain, coldness, and stiffness, and wrist pain. The forearm inflammation was reducing the circulation to her fingers. Image 1 shows the pre-treatment thermogram, revealing cool fingers and wrist due to poor circulation. Note the evidence of inflammation in the upper forearms. An Earthing electrode patch was placed on her left palm. Image 2 shows the delivery and distribution of blood to her right fingers after six minutes of Earthing. The fingers were beginning to get warmer. Image 3, after eleven minutes, shows continuing improvement of the circulation in the right fingers and wrist, and the beginning of improvement in her left fingers. Image 4 shows dramatic improvement on both sides after sixteen minutes. Note also the decrease in temperature (inflammation) in the upper forearms.

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Plate 6. Photographic images show accelerated improvement of an eight-month-old nonhealing open wound suffered by an eighty-four-year-old woman. Right column pictures are close-ups of photos to the left. Top row shows the open wound and a pale-gray hue to the skin. Middle row photos, taken after one week, show marked level of healing and improvement in circulation, as indicated by the skin color. Bottom row, taken after two weeks, show the wound healed over and skin color looking dramatically healthier. Treatment consisted of a daily thirty-minute grounding session with an electrode patch while seated comfortably. The cause of the wound adjacent to the left ankle was a poorly fitted boot. A few hours after wearing the boot, a blister formed, and then developed into a resistant open wound. The patient had undergone various treatments at a specialized wound center with no results. Vascular imaging of her lower extremities revealed poor circulation. When first seen, she had a mild limp and was in pain. After an initial thirty minutes of exposure to grounding, the patient reported a noticeable decrease in pain. After one week of daily grounding, she said her pain level was about 80 percent less. At that time, she showed no evidence of a limp. At the end of two weeks, she said she was completely pain free.

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Plate 7. Effects of grounded sleep on a forty-seven-year-old male with diabetic neuropathy. Photo (left) is of the patient's lower right leg before treatment. After three nights of grounding with a conductive bed pad and electrode patches on both feet, the patient reported significant relief of pain and improved sleep. After seven nights, there was substantial reduction in redness and inflammation, indicating better circulation (right). The patient also reported great improvement in energy levels and an overall sense of "increased well-being."

CHAPTER 7.

Connecting the Dots Gaetan Chevalier is a hard-nosed Southern California biophysicist and electrophysiologist, a scientist specializing in the body's electrical "wiring." In the summer of 2008, he conducted a study to investigate the impact of Earthing on a variety of physiological functions in the body. During preliminary work to test the design of the study, he invited a friend-a retired probation officer-to the laboratory to act as a "guinea pig." The subjects in the experiment were going to be grounded while sitting in a comfortable reclining chair, similar to one you may have in your living room. The friend sat down in the chair, and Clint Ober started chatting with him.

"A few minutes into the conversation, my friend mentioned that he had painful arthritis in his hands, something I hadn't known about," recalled Dr. Chevalier. "Clint then asked him to describe his current level of pain on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being unbearable pain.

"My friend described his level as 8 in the left and 9 in the right.

"Clint then placed an electrode patch on the palm of each hand and snapped on a wire connected to an outside ground rod. We continued to talk. After about a half hour, Clint asked my friend about the pain level now.

"A look of surprise came over my friend's face. He suddenly became aware that his pain level had dropped way down. He answered 2 on the left and 3 on the right, and then said, 'I have not experienced so little pain in my hands for a long time. This is amazing.'"

Dr. Chevalier described a similar experience with one of his yoga instructors. She had severe arthritis in the thumbs, and doing something as simple as picking up an object-a cup, for instance-would often produce shooting pain up into the arm so bad that she dropped the object.

"She came to the laboratory and we grounded her for a half hour," he said. "When she left, she told us she didn't feel any pain. I see her every week at yoga cla.s.s, and after several months she said that the pain in the thumbs never came back. She now walks on the beach for at least a half-hour every day and also sleeps grounded."

Observations like these have been commonplace right from the start of the pursuit of scientific validation for Earthing. The positive results in the early studies prompted deeper and more sophisticated investigations about how grounding affects the body and its complicated inner machinery. Now, a decade after the first experiment, ongoing research has started to put together the pieces of this amazing story into a multifaceted hypothesis with great implications for human health. In this chapter, we will present some of the most revealing and important findings to date.

THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF EARTHING.

A study published in 2005 by electrical engineer Roger Applewhite confirmed two highly significant facts: 1. 1.Electrons move from the Earth to the body and vice versa when the body is grounded. This effect is sufficient to maintain the body at the same negative-charge electrical potential as the Earth. We hypothesize that this flow of free electrons into the body is the mechanism by which inflammation is brought down.

2.Grounding powerfully reduces electromagnetic fields (EMFs) on the body.

It is hard to avoid electro-technical language to describe this important study that demonstrates some basic physics behind Earthing, and specifically that the human body is a natural conductor of the Earth's vibrant surface energy. We will do our best to keep things simple.

Mr. Applewhite is an expert in the design of electrostatic discharge systems for high-tech and electronic industries. His study, published in the journal European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics, European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics, involved a series of electrical measurements on the body of an individual grounded and ungrounded. Grounding was achieved by attaching conductive electrode patches to various places on the anatomy or by lying on a conductive bed sheet. involved a series of electrical measurements on the body of an individual grounded and ungrounded. Grounding was achieved by attaching conductive electrode patches to various places on the anatomy or by lying on a conductive bed sheet.

A voltage drop across an in-line resistor, measured with an oscilloscope, provided ample evidence of an exchange of electrons between the Earth and the body during grounding.

The electric potential (in volts) generated on the body by the EMFs at 60Hz was recorded on both the ungrounded and grounded body using a specially designed high-impedance measurement system. Earthing, either with the patches or the bed sheet, reduced the immediate environmental electric potential by a factor of at least 70. Figure 7-1 below shows this knockdown effect graphically.

Thus, in one study, the Earth connection was shown to serve as a "source" of beneficial electrons and, at the same time, as a "shield" preventing environmental electric fields from creating disruptive electric potentials on the body.

EARTHING TRUMPS EMFS.

In recent years, there has been much discussion in scientific circles and in the media about the possible health effects from exposure to man-made EMFs. Because of widespread interest in this issue, we would like to take a moment and attempt to shed additional light on the subject in relation to grounding.

Effect of Conductive Patch Grounding on 60Hz Mode [image]

Figure 7-1. The graph shows the huge difference in environmental electric field potential measured on the body at three sites-at baseline, that is, before grounding, and during grounding.

All of us live immersed in an unseen sea of human-generated EMFs. They are everywhere-in our houses, workplaces, and outdoors-primarily produced by the electrical power grid. In North America, the grid produces EMFs vibrating at 60Hz. Existing wires inside the walls produce EMFs even when appliances are not connected. The potential for interference in our bodies varies from person to person and in different locations, depending on the intensity of the fields. Within an ungrounded body, electrons and other charged particles react with the EMFs present in the immediate environment producing unnatural perturbations. When a person is grounded, the body is shielded from these perturbations by the Earth's electrons. An EMF has both an electric and a magnetic field, and the difference between the two and their effects on the body is explained in Appendix B, "The Physics of Earthing."

Some individuals are ultra-sensitive and can be severely affected. This "electrical hypersensitivity" cannot be explained by any known mechanisms, as the threshold for known interactions is at least fifty times higher than actual exposure levels. Nevertheless, we believe that such hypersensitivity is a real phenomenon and is directly related to a loss of natural grounding, the modern-day disconnect with the Earth. In Chapter 10, you will read two dramatic stories of individuals who suffered with debilitating electrical hypersensitivity and whose symptoms were improved by Earthing. To us, the ungrounded body "floats" in a tempest of random environmental energies and operates unstably, like a leaf in the wind.

The Applewhite study we just described showed that when the body is directly connected to the Earth, it is essentially shielded from electropollution. This finding confirms what is generally accepted in basic physics (see the inset "The Umbrella Effect of Earthing") and also substantiates what we learned while doing the cortisol study described in Chapter 3. In that experiment, twelve subjects were grounded to the Earth during sleep. Their electrical field-induced body voltage, from exposure to common electrical wiring and cords near their beds, was measured before and after grounding.

What most people don't realize is that if you sleep with a lamp, clock, or radio next to your bed, the electric field from the wires will extend out to your body, even if the appliances are turned off. As measured by a voltmeter, in the bedrooms of the study subjects there was an average of about 3.3 volts pre-grounding. The level was significantly reduced, averaging 0.007 volts, when subjects slept on the grounded bed pads. The stark differences, and protective effect of grounding, are summarized in Table 7-1.

TABLE 7-1. ELECTRICAL FIELD-INDUCED VOLTAGE CREATED ON SUBJECTS' BODIES WHILE LYING IN THEIR OWN BEDS SUBJECTS.

VOLTS BEFORE GROUNDING.

VOLTS AFTER GROUNDING.

1.

3.94.

0.003.

2.

1.47.

0.001.

3.

2.70.

0.004.