Epilepsy and Progesterone
癫痫和孕激素
by Raymond Peat
The length of the life-span, and of the period of youth or immaturity, is closely associated with the size of the brain, and the brain has a very high rate of metabolism. When something interferes with this very high metabolic rate, the consequences may be instantanteous,* or developmental, or chronic and degenerative, or even transgenerational. The issue of epilepsy centers on questions of brain metabolism, and so it has all of those dimensions.
生命周期的长短，以及年轻或不成熟时期的长短，与大脑的大小密切相关，而大脑具有非常高的新陈代谢率。当某些东西干扰这个非常高的代谢率时，后果可能是瞬间的，*或发育的，或慢性和退化的，甚至跨代的。癫痫的问题集中在大脑代谢的问题上，所以它有所有这些方面。
As I discuss the mechanisms known to predispose a person to epilepsy, I will emphasize the centrality of oxidative energy production, and show how “stroke,” “stress,” “hyperactivity,” “dementia,” and other brain syndromes are related to “epilepsy.” (Similar processes are being studied in the heart and other tissues; eventually, we might have a general language that will make it easier to understand the parallels in the various kinds of “seizure” in any organ.)
在我讨论使人易患癫痫的机制时，我将强调氧化能量产生的中心作用，并说明“中风”、“紧张”、“过度活跃”、“痴呆”和其他大脑综合症与“癫痫”是如何相关的。(类似的过程正在心脏和其他组织中进行研究;最终，我们可能会有一种通用的语言，使我们更容易理解任何器官中各种“癫痫发作”的相似之处。)
As an old term, “epilepsy” has aquired a burden of pseudoscientific ideas, covering old superstitions with an overlay of new superstitions. [Hereditary epilepsy has been discussed in countless textbooks and medical journals, but I think a much better case could be made for the inheritance of a tendency to offer stupid genetic explanations.] “Hereditary epilepsy” and “idiopathic epilepsy” are seriously pathogenic terms; “brain scar” sometimes has a factual basis, but most often the term is an evasion of understanding.
作为一个古老的术语，“癫痫”已经获得了伪科学观念的负担，用新的迷信覆盖旧的迷信。[无数的教科书和医学杂志都在讨论遗传性癫痫，但我认为，提供愚蠢的基因解释倾向的遗传可能是一个更好的例子。“遗传性癫痫”和“特发性癫痫”是严重的致病术语;“脑疤”有时是有事实根据的，但最常见的是逃避理解。
As long as we realize that the essential meaning of the word is “something that grabs you,” “epilepsy” is a convenient way to refer to a cluster of convulsive states, fainting spells, night-terrors and nightmares, and strange sensations.
只要我们意识到这个词的本质含义是“抓住你的东西”，“癫痫”是一种指代抽搐状态、昏厥、夜惊和噩梦以及奇怪感觉的方便方式。
Seizures can be caused by lack of glucose, lack of oxygen, vitamin B6 deficiency, and magnesium deficiency. They are more likely to occur during the night, during puberty, premenstrually, during pregnancy, during the first year of life, and can be triggered by hyperventilation, running, strong emotions, or unusual sensory stimulation. Water retention and low sodium increase susceptibility to seizures. When I was in high school, our dog found and ate a pint of bacon grease, and shortly afterward had a convulsive seizure. I knew of veterinarians who treated seizures in dogs with a vermifuge, so it seemed obvious that a metabolic disturbance, especially if combined with intestinal irritation, could cause fits.
癫痫发作可由葡萄糖缺乏、缺氧、维生素B6缺乏和镁缺乏引起。它们更有可能发生在夜间、青春期、月经前、怀孕期间、生命的第一年，并可能由过度通气、跑步、强烈的情绪或不寻常的感官刺激引发。水潴留和低钠会增加癫痫发作的易感性。在我上高中的时候，我家的狗发现了一品脱培根油脂，并吃了一品脱培根油脂，不久之后就癫痫发作了。我认识一些兽医，他们用驱虫剂治疗狗的癫痫，所以很明显，代谢紊乱，尤其是如果伴有肠道刺激，可能会导致癫痫。
It was undoubtedly such observations that led some physicians to advocate removal of the colon as treatment for epilepsy. Pregnancy and the menstrual cycle have been recognized as having something to do with seizures, but when seizures occurred only during pregnancy, they were classified as nonepileptic, and when they had a clear premenstrual occurrence, they were likely to be classified as “hysterical fits,” to be treated with punishment.
毫无疑问，正是这些观察结果导致一些医生提倡切除结肠来治疗癫痫。怀孕和月经周期被认为与癫痫发作有关，但如果癫痫发作只发生在怀孕期间，就被归类为非癫痫发作，如果明显经前发作，就可能被归类为“癔病发作”，需要进行惩罚。
It has been observed that all “recognized” anti-seizure drugs are teratogenic, and women who are taking such drugs are told that pregnancy might kill them if they stop the drug, but that their babies will have a greatly increased risk of birth defects if they take the drugs during pregnancy. This is why a better understanding of epilepsy is very important. Old therapies are mainly important for the insight they can give into the nature of the physiological problem. Some of the well established clinical-laboratory observations (F. Mora, and C. S. Babel, for example) give strong hints as to the physiological problem, for example, low albumin, high prealbumin, low magnesium and high calcium all suggest hypothyroidism. (Problems with the bowel, liver, and sex hormones are highly associated with hypothyroidism, both as causes and as effects.) Water retention was so clearly involved in seizures that increased water intake was used as a diagnostic procedure. (R. Grinker) Unfortunately, animal experiments showed that water intoxication increased susceptibility to seizures even in normal individuals. Low sodium content in the body fluids also predisposed to seizures, so that someone with hyponatremia (low blood sodium) would be more susceptible to induction of a seizure by excessive water intake. (Excessive water uptake is still recognized as a factor in seizures, but now it is seen as part of a complex process, involving energy, hormones, and transmitter substances. E.g., Kempski; Chan.)
据观察，所有“公认”的抗癫痫药物都具有致畸性，服用此类药物的妇女被告知，如果停止用药，怀孕可能会导致死亡，但如果她们在怀孕期间服用这些药物，她们的婴儿出生缺陷的风险将大大增加。这就是为什么更好地了解癫痫是非常重要的。旧的治疗方法主要是对生理问题的本质的认识。一些成熟的临床实验室观察(例如F. Mora和C. S. Babel)对生理问题给出了强烈的暗示，例如，低白蛋白、高前白蛋白、低镁和高钙都提示甲状腺功能减退。(肠道、肝脏和性激素的问题与甲状腺功能减退密切相关，原因和结果都是如此。)水潴留明显与癫痫发作有关，因此增加水摄入量被用作诊断程序。不幸的是，动物实验表明，即使在正常人身上，水中毒也会增加癫痫发作的易感性。体液中钠含量低也容易引起癫痫，因此患有低钠血症(低血钠)的人更容易因摄入过多的水而诱发癫痫。(过度摄取水分仍然被认为是癫痫发作的一个因素，但现在它被视为一个复杂过程的一部分，涉及能量、激素和传递物质。例如,Kempski;Chan)。
Hypothyroid people tend to lose sodium easily, and unopposed estrogen increases water retention, without an equivalent sodium retention, so low thyroid, high estrogen people have two of the conditions (edema and hyponatremia) known to predispose to seizures. Another outstanding feature of seizures of various sorts is that they are most likely to occur at night, especially in the early pre-dawn hours. Low blood sugar and high adrenalin predominate during those hours. Hypoglycemia, in itself, like oxygen deprivation, is enough to cause convulsions. Progesterone and thyroid promote normal energy production, and their deficiency causes a tendency toward hypoglycemia, edema and instability of nerves.
甲状腺功能低下的人容易失去钠，而非对抗的雌激素会增加水潴留，而没有同等的钠潴留，所以低甲状腺、高雌激素的人会有两种情况(水肿和低钠血症)，这两种情况已知会导致癫痫发作。各种癫痫发作的另一个突出特征是，它们最可能发生在夜间，特别是黎明前的早些时候。低血糖和高肾上腺素在这段时间占主导地位。低血糖本身，就像缺氧一样，足以引起抽搐。
孕酮和甲状腺促进正常能量的产生，缺乏它们会导致低血糖、水肿和神经不稳定。
Twenty years ago, a woman who was considered demented visited me. From the age of 21, she had been increasingly disabled by premenstrual migraines. When she was 35 she was a school teacher, and during the summer a neurologist told her that dilantin would help her headaches, because “migraine is similar to epilepsy.” Although she told the neurologist that the drug made her “too stupid to teach school,” he offered her no alternatives, and didn't mention that sudden withdrawal from the drug could trigger a seizure. When classes started she discontinued the dilantin and had a seizure. The neurologist said the seizure proved that migraines were a form of epilepsy. At the age of 52, she spent about 20 hours a day in bed, and couldn't go outside by herself, because she would get lost. After using a little progesterone for a few days, she stopped having seizures, discontinued her drugs, and was able to work. When she returned to graduate school, she got straight As, and earned her masters' degree in gerontology. But she had lost 17 years because the drug industry had covered up the role of the hormones in epilepsy, migraine, and the perimenstrual syndrome.
二十年前，一个被认为精神错乱的女人来找我。从21岁开始，她因经前偏头痛而变得越来越残疾。35岁时，她是一名学校教师，暑假期间，一位神经学家告诉她苯妥英钠可以缓解她的头痛，因为“偏头痛与癫痫类似”。尽管她告诉神经科医生，这种药物让她“愚蠢到不能在学校教书”，但他没有给她其他选择，也没有提到突然停药可能会引发癫痫。开始上课时，她停止服用苯妥英钠，然后癫痫发作。神经学家说，癫痫发作证明偏头痛是癫痫的一种形式。52岁的时候，她每天要在床上躺20个小时，不能自己出门，因为她会迷路。在服用少量黄体酮几天后，她停止了癫痫发作，停止了用药，开始工作。当她回到研究生院时，她得了全优，并获得了老年学硕士学位。但她失去了17年，因为制药业掩盖了激素在癫痫、偏头痛和月经期综合症中的作用。
The most popular anticonvulsant drugs are both neurotoxic and teratogenic, that is, they damage the patient's brain, and greatly increase the incidence of birth defects. The Nazis justified their horrible medical experiments as “science,” but the effects of epilepsy medicine in the last half century have been similar in effect, grander in scale, and without any scientific justification.
Besides the specific promotional efforts of the drug industry and their branch of government, there is a broader situation that makes their work easier. It is a culture of goony ideas, that ultimately emanates from the academic elite, which (since Descartes, and before) places “thought” above evidence. In biology, “genes” and “membranes” are confused ideas that are used to justify actions that aren't based on evidence. For the Nazis, “cultural degeneracy” was a medical-biological-political category based on that style of thinking. In the United States, “genes” for epilepsy, hyperactivity, language development, IQ, eclampsia, etc., are “found” at Harvard/MIT/Stan- ford/Yale/Univ. of California, etc., by an elite whose wits have been dulled by environmental deprivation, that is, by a lack of criticism.
最流行的抗惊厥药物既具有神经毒性又具有致畸性，即损伤患者的大脑，大大增加出生缺陷的发生率。纳粹把他们可怕的医学实验称为“科学”，但在过去的半个世纪里，癫痫药物的效果与之相似，规模更大，而且没有任何科学依据。
除了制药行业及其政府部门的具体推广努力外，还有一个更广泛的情况使他们的工作更容易。这是一种愚蠢想法的文化，最终源自学术精英，他们(自笛卡尔(Descartes)以来，甚至更早)将“思想”置于证据之上。在生物学中，“基因”和“膜”是混淆的概念，被用来证明没有证据的行为。对纳粹来说，“文化堕落”是基于这种思维方式的医学-生物学-政治范畴。在美国，癫痫、多动症、语言发展、智商、子痫等“基因”都是在哈佛/麻省理工学院/斯坦福德/耶鲁/大学“发现”的。由于环境的匮乏，也就是说，由于缺乏批评，精英们的智慧变得迟钝了。
By manipulating the diet and environment, animals can be made more or less seizure-prone, and it happens that the changes that affect the brain affect all other organs, in ways that are now fairly well understood. Examining the cellular events associated with a seizure is useful for therapy and prevention of seizures, but the same methods are helpful for many other conditions. It is now clearly established that stress can cause brain damage, as well as other diseases. Now that our public health establishment has eliminated smoking from public places, maybe they can find a way to reduce stress and disease by removing morons from positions of power.
通过控制饮食和环境，动物或多或少都有癫痫发作的倾向，而影响大脑的变化也会影响所有其他器官，其方式现在已经很好理解了。检查与癫痫相关的细胞事件对治疗和预防癫痫很有用，但同样的方法对许多其他疾病也有帮助。现在已经确定，压力会导致大脑损伤，以及其他疾病。既然我们的公共卫生机构已经禁止在公共场所吸烟，也许他们可以找到一种方法来减少压力和疾病，把白痴从权力位置上赶走。
Excitotoxicity, in its simplest sense, is the harmful cellular effect (death or injury) caused by an excitatory transmitter such as glutamate or aspartate acting on a cell whose energetic reserves aren't adequate to sustain the level of activity provoked by the transmitter. Once an excitotoxic state exists, the consequences of cell exhaustion can increase the likelihood that the condition will spread to other cells, since any excitation can trigger a complex of other excitatory processes. As calcium enters cells, potassium leaves, and enzymes are activated, producing free fatty acids (linoleic and arachidonic, for example) and prostaglandins, which activate other processes, including lipid peroxidation and free radical production. Protein kinase C (promoted by unsaturated fats and estrogen) facilitates the release of excitatory amino acids. (See J. W. Phillis and M. H. O'Regan, “Mechanisms of glutamate and aspartate release in the ischemic rat cerebral cortex,” Br. Res. 730(1-2), 150-164, 1996.) Estrogen supports acetylcholine release, which leads to increased extracellular potassium and excitatory amino acids. (See R. B. Gibbs, et al., “Effects of estrogen on potassium-stimulated acetylcholine release in the hippocampus and overlying cortex of adult rats,” Br. Res. 749(1), 143-146, 1997.)
兴奋毒性，就其最简单的意义而言，是由兴奋性递质(如谷氨酸或天冬氨酸)作用于细胞而引起的有害细胞效应(死亡或损伤)，细胞的能量储备不足以维持由该递质引起的活动水平。一旦兴奋毒性状态存在，细胞衰竭的后果可能会增加这种情况扩散到其他细胞的可能性，因为任何兴奋都可以触发其他兴奋过程的复杂过程。当钙进入细胞，钾离开，酶被激活，产生自由脂肪酸(例如亚油酸和花生四烯酸)和前列腺素，这激活其他过程，包括脂质过氧化和自由基的产生。蛋白激酶C(由不饱和脂肪和雌激素促进)促进兴奋性氨基酸的释放。(参见J. W. Phillis和M. H. O'Regan的《缺血大鼠大脑皮层谷氨酸和天冬氨酸释放机制》，Br。参考文献(1-2)，1996。雌激素支持乙酰胆碱的释放，这导致细胞外钾和兴奋性氨基酸的增加。(见R. B. Gibbs等人，“雌激素对成年大鼠海马区和皮质层中钾离子刺激的乙酰胆碱释放的影响”）
Estrogen also stimulates the production of free radicals. Calcium, free radicals, and unsaturated free fatty acids impair energy production, decreasing the ability to regulate potassium and calcium. The increased estrogen associated with seizures is associated with reduced serum calcium (Jacono and Robertson, 1987). Feedback self-stimulation of free radicals, free fatty acids, and prostaglandins create a bias toward increased excitation.
雌激素也会刺激自由基的产生。钙、自由基和不饱和游离脂肪酸会损害能量的产生，降低调节钾和钙的能力。与癫痫相关的雌激素增加与血清钙减少有关(Jacono和Robertson, 1987)。自由基、游离脂肪酸和前列腺素的反馈自我刺激产生了增加兴奋的倾向。
Ammonia is produced by stimulated nerves, and normally its elimination helps to eliminate and control the excitotoxic amino acids, glutamate and aspartate. The production of urea consumes aspartic acid, converting it to fumaric acid, but this requires carbon dioxide, produced by normal mitochondrial function. A deficiency of carbon dioxide would reduce the delivery of oxygen to the brain by constricting blood vessels and changing hemoglobin's affinity for oxygen (limiting carbon dioxide production), and the failure to consume aspartate (in urea synthesis) and glutamate (as alpha-ketoglutarate) and aspartate (as oxaloacetate) in the Krebs cycle, means that as energy becomes deficient, excitation tends to be promoted. This helps to explain the fact that seizures can be induced by hypoxia. (Balloonists and mountain climbers at extremely high elevations have mentioned suffering from severe insomnia. The mechanisms of excitotoxicity are probably involved in other forms of insomnia, too.) Antioxidants help to control seizures, by reducing the excitatory contribution of free radicals and lipid peroxidation. Since excitation can promote the toxic forms of oxidation, many surprising substances turn out to have an “antioxidant” function. Magnesium, sodium (balancing calcium and potassium), thyroid and progesterone (increasing energy production), and in some situations, carbon dioxide. Aspirin, by inhibiting prostaglandin synthesis (and maybe other mechanisms) often lowers free radical production. Adenosine seems to have a variety of antioxidant functions, and one mechanism seems to be its function as an antiexcitatory transmitter. One of estrogen's excitant actions on the brain probably involves its antagonism to adenosine (Phillis and O'Regan, 1988).
氨是由受刺激的神经产生的，在正常情况下，氨的消除有助于消除和控制兴奋毒性氨基酸、谷氨酸和天冬氨酸。尿素的生产消耗天冬氨酸，将其转化为反丁烯二酸，但这需要由正常线粒体功能产生的二氧化碳。缺乏的二氧化碳将会减少氧气到大脑的交付和改变血管收缩血红蛋白对氧的亲和力(限制二氧化碳生产),并未能消耗天冬氨酸(尿素合成)和谷氨酸(alpha-ketoglutarate)和天冬氨酸盐(如草酰乙酸)克雷布斯循环,意味着当能量不足时，兴奋倾向于增强。这有助于解释缺氧可导致癫痫发作的事实。(乘坐热气球的人和在高海拔地区登山的人曾说过他们饱受严重的失眠之苦。兴奋性毒性的机制可能也与其他形式的失眠有关。)抗氧化剂有助于控制癫痫发作，通过减少自由基和脂质过氧化的兴奋贡献。由于兴奋可以促进氧化的毒性形式，许多令人惊讶的物质被证明具有“抗氧化”功能。镁，钠(平衡钙和钾)，甲状腺和孕酮(增加能量的产生)，在某些情况下，还有二氧化碳。阿司匹林通过抑制前列腺素的合成(可能还有其他机制)常常降低自由基的产生。腺苷似乎具有多种抗氧化功能，其中一种机制似乎是它作为一种抗兴奋递质的功能。雌激素对大脑的兴奋作用之一可能与它对腺苷的拮抗有关(菲利斯和奥里根，1988)。
Albumin, besides maintaining blood volume and preventing edema, serves to protect respiration, by binding free fatty acids. Estrogen blocks the liver's ability to produce albumin, and increases the level of circulating free fatty acids. Free fatty acids cause brain edema. This is probably another aspect of estrogen's contribution to seizure susceptibility. Magnesium sulfate has been used for generations in India to treat eclampsia and “toxemia” of pregnancy, and its effectiveness is gradually coming to be recognized in the U.S. Increasingly, magnesium deficiency is recognized as a factor that increases susceptibility to seizures. (Valenzuela and Benardo, 1995; Slandley, et al., 1995). Hypothyroidism reduces the ability of cells to retain magnesium. Thyroid does many things to protect against seizures. It keeps estrogen and adrenal hormones low, and increases production of progesterone and pregnenolone. It facilitates retention of magnesium and of sodium, and prevents edema in a variety of ways.
白蛋白除了维持血容量和防止水肿外，还通过结合游离脂肪酸来保护呼吸。雌激素阻碍了肝脏产生白蛋白的能力，并增加了循环中的游离脂肪酸的水平。游离脂肪酸会引起脑水肿。这可能是雌激素对癫痫易感性贡献的另一个方面。硫酸镁在印度已经被用于治疗子痫和妊娠毒血症好几代了，美国也逐渐认识到它的有效性。(Valenzuela and Benardo, 1995;Slandley等，1995)。甲状腺机能减退会降低细胞保留镁的能力。甲状腺在防止癫痫发作方面有很多作用。它使雌激素和肾上腺激素保持在低水平，并增加孕酮和孕烯酮的分泌。它有助于镁和钠的保留，并以各种方式防止水肿。
Progesterone, because of its normal anesthetic function (which prevents the pain of childbirth when its level is adequate), directly quiets nerves, and in this way suppresses many of the excitotoxic processes. It has direct effects on mitochondria, promoting energy production, and it facilitates thyroid hormone functions in various ways. It promotes the elimination of estrogen from tissues, and is a “diuretic” in several benign ways, that are compatible with maintenance of blood volume. It antagonizes the mineralocorticoids and the glucocorticoids, both of which promote seizures. (Roberts and Keith, 1995.) The combination of hypoglycemia with elevation of cortisone probably accounts for the nocturnal incidence of seizures.
孕酮，由于其正常的麻醉功能(当其水平足够时，可以防止分娩的疼痛)，直接平静神经，并以这种方式抑制许多兴奋毒性过程。它对线粒体有直接影响，促进能量生产，并以各种方式促进甲状腺激素的功能。它促进组织中雌激素的消除，并且在几个良性方面是一种“利尿剂”，与维持血容量兼容。它能拮抗盐皮质激素和糖皮质激素，这两种激素都会导致癫痫发作。(罗伯茨和基思，1995)。低血糖和可的松升高可能是夜间癫痫发作的原因。
If progesterone's antiepileptic effectiveness were not enough (and it is very effective even in irrational pharmaceutical formulations), the fact that it reduces birth defects, and promotes brain development and nerve repair should assure its general use in women with a history of seizures, until it is established that they are no longer “epileptic.” Although thyroid, progesterone, and a high quality protein diet will generally correct the epilepsy problem, it is important to mention that the involvement of unsaturated fats and free radicals in seizure physiology implies that we should minimize our consumption of the unsaturated fats. Even years after eliminating them from the diet, their release from tissue storage can prolong the problem, and during that time the use of vitamin E is likely to reduce the intensity and frequency of seizures. Coconut oil lowers the requirement for vitamin E, and reduces the toxicity of the unsaturated fats (see Cleland, et al.), favoring effective respiration and improving thyroid and progesterone production. Endotoxin formed in the bowel can block respiration and cause hormone imbalances contributing to instability of the nerves, so it is helpful to optimize bowel flora, for example with a carrot salad; a dressing of vinegar, coconut oil and olive oil, carried into the intestine by the carrot fiber, suppresses bacterial growth while stimulating healing of the wall of the intestine. The carrot salad improves the ratio of progesterone to estrogen and cortisol, and so is as appropriate for epilepsy as for premenstrual syndrome, insomnia, or arthritis.
如果黄体酮的抗癫痫效果还不够(即使在不合理的药物配方中，它也是非常有效的)，它减少出生缺陷、促进大脑发育和神经修复的事实应该确保它在有癫痫病史的女性中普遍使用，直到确定他们不再是“癫痫症患者”。虽然甲状腺、黄体酮和高质量的蛋白质饮食通常可以纠正癫痫问题，但重要的是，癫痫生理学中涉及的不饱和脂肪和自由基意味着我们应该尽量减少不饱和脂肪的摄入。即使在将它们从饮食中消除数年后，它们从组织储存中释放出来也会延长问题，在此期间，维生素E的使用可能会降低癫痫发作的强度和频率。椰子油降低了对维生素E的需求，减少了不饱和脂肪的毒性(见克莱兰等)，有利于有效的呼吸和改善甲状腺和孕酮的产生。肠道内形成的内毒素会阻碍呼吸，导致激素失衡，导致神经不稳定，所以优化肠道菌群是有帮助的，比如胡萝卜沙拉;胡萝卜纤维将醋、椰子油和橄榄油带入肠道，抑制细菌生长，促进肠壁愈合。胡萝卜沙拉能提高黄体酮、雌激素和皮质醇的比例，因此对癫痫、经前综合症、失眠或关节炎同样适用。
NOTES:
When the brain loses its oxygen supply, consciousness is lost immediately, before there is much decrease in the ATP concentration. This has led to the proposal of interesting “electronic” ideas of consciousness, but there is another way of viewing this. While ATP constitutes a kind of reservoir of cellular energy, the flow of carbon dioxide through the brain cell is almost the mirror image of the flow of oxygen. Oxygen scarcity leads directly to carbon dioxide scarcity. The “sensitive state,” consciousness, might require the presence of carbon dioxide as well as ATP, to sustain a cooperative, semi-stable, state of the cytoplasmic proteins. The ability of ordinary light to trigger a conformation change in the hemoglobin-carbon monoxide-carbon dioxide system shows how sensitive a system with only a few elements can be. At the other extreme from consciousness, there is the evidence that carbon dioxide is essential for even the growing/living state of protozoa, algae, and bacteria.(O. Rahn, 1941.)
O. Rahn, “Protozoa need carbon dioxide for growth,” Growth 5, 197-199, 1941. “On page 113 of this volume, the statement of Valley and Rettger that all bacteria need carbon dioxide for growth had been shown to apply to young as well as old cells.” “…it is possible…to remove it as rapidly as it is produced, and under these circumstances, bacteria cannot multiply.”
注:
当大脑失去氧气供应时，在ATP浓度大幅下降之前，意识就会立即丧失。这导致了关于意识的有趣的“电子”概念的提出，但还有另一种看待这个问题的方式。ATP是一种细胞能量的储存库，而二氧化碳在脑细胞中的流动与氧气的流动几乎是镜像。氧气的缺乏直接导致二氧化碳的缺乏。“敏感状态”，即意识，可能需要二氧化碳和ATP的存在，以维持细胞质蛋白质的合作、半稳定状态。普通光线在血红蛋白-一氧化碳-二氧化碳系统中引发构象变化的能力显示出只有少数元素的系统是多么敏感。在意识的另一个极端，有证据表明，即使是原生动物、藻类和细菌的生长/生存状态，二氧化碳也是必不可少的。Rahn, 1941)。
O. Rahn，“原生动物的生长需要二氧化碳”，《生长5》，197-199,1941。“在这本书的第113页，Valley和Rettger关于所有细菌的生长都需要二氧化碳的陈述已经被证明适用于年轻的和年老的细胞。”＂…它是可能的…在这种情况下，细菌无法繁殖。”
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