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Chronic conditions like cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease defy treatment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that more than half of adults and one-third of children and teens in the United States live with at least one chronic illness. Chronic medical conditions, according to the National Institutes of Health, cause more than half of all deaths worldwide.
Chronic disease is essentially the consequence of the natural healing cycle becoming blocked, specifically by disruptions at the metabolic and cellular levels. According to Naviaux, who directs the Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disease Center at UC San Diego the healing process is a dynamic circle that starts with injury and ends with recovery, evidence shows that most chronic illnesses are caused by molecular features of this process are universal, the biological reaction to an injury, not the initial injury or the agent of the injury. The illness occurs because the body is unable to complete the healing process.
Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, caused by sun exposure that occurred decades earlier, damaging DNA that was never repaired. Post-traumatic stress disorder can flare months or years after the original head injury has healed. A concussion sustained before an earlier concussion has completely resolved typically results in more severe symptoms and prolonged recovery, even if the second impact is less than the first.
Progressive dysfunction with recurrent injury after incomplete healing occurs in all organ systems, not just the brain. Chronic disease results when cells are caught in a repeating loop of incomplete recovery and re-injury, unable to fully heal. This biology is at the root of virtually every chronic illness known, including susceptibility to recurrent infections, autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, diabetic heart and kidney disease, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Alzheimer’s dementia, cancer and autism spectrum disorder.
Researchers conducted randomized clinical trial of 10 boys diagnosed with autism, treating them with a single dose of a century-old drug that inhibits adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a small molecule produced by cellular mitochondria that serves as a warning siren of danger. When the abnormal ATP signaling was silenced, the treated boys in the trial displayed dramatically improved communication and social behaviors. They spoke, made eye contact and ceased repetitive motions. But the benefits were transient, fading and disappearing as the drug exited their systems.
Metabolic dysfunction drives chronic disease. Progression through the healing cycle is controlled by mitochondria, the organelles within cells best known for their production of most of the energy cells need to survive and metabokines, signaling molecules derived from metabolism to regulate cellular receptors, including more than 100 linked to healing. Abnormalities in metabokine signaling that cause the normal stages of the cell danger response to persist abnormally, creating blocks in the healing cycle.