ELECTRON TANSPORT AND THE WORK OF WILLIAM FREDERICH KOCH, MD

by Dr. Lawrence Wilson

All information in this article is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.

William F. Koch, MD was a brilliant physician who lived in the late 19^th to the mid-20th century. For a time, he was the medical director of the Detroit Women's Hospital. At the end of his life he was actually exiled from the United States for his discoveries about cancer. He died in South America in 1967.

Dr. Koch is best known for the discovery of several anti-cancer remedies that were sometimes called “anti-cancer vaccines”, though they had nothing in common with modern vaccines. Among them were parabenzoquinone and glyoxylide. These may be available today, but if they are, they are not the same as the ones he invented, which were far more powerful. While designed to combat cancer, originally, they could also help with many other diseases.

Dr. Koch was also known as a brilliant researcher on oxidative respiration or oxidative metabolism. For this reason, the main thrust of this article is about oxidative metabolism, a topic that is of vital importance if one wishes to understand how nutritional balancing science works.

WHAT IS OXIDATIVE METABOLISM?

Oxidative metabolism is the unique human method of producing energy at the cellular level, within the mitochondria of each cell. It is unique because, although animals and some plants share the method to some degree, it is mainly a human method of energy production. In fact, because it is so efficient, it allows most higher thought and other higher energy functions that humans can accomplish, but not lower life forms. This is important for nutritional balancing, which seeks to restore oxidative metabolism or oxidative “respiration”, as it is falsely called in biochemistry books.

Oxidative metabolism depends not only on the glyolysis and Krebs or carboxylic acid cycles functioning properly. It also depends upon the less well known biochemical pathway called the electron transport system. In this system, electrons shuttle between molecules of NAD and NADH, and this generates at least half of a person’s high-energy ATP, assuming that person is healthy, which is rare today.

In fact, few are healthy these days and, as a result, their energy output falls. This always lands them in a slow oxidation situation, which we always seek to remedy by various means at our disposal. Among holistic practitioners, some describe this as mitochondrial dysfunction. The questions are, why does it occur and what can be done to reverse it.

WHY DOES THE ELECTRON TRANSPORT SYSTEM FAIL?

A lower energy state due to a faulty electron transport system can be due to any number of toxins that get into the cells. It can also be due to generalized nutritional depletion, along with toxic metal substitution in the enzyme binding sites of the electron transport system. One of these enzymes is NADH, for example.

The electron transport system requires the B-complex vitamins, manganese, zinc, copper and iron, among other nutrients. However the nutrients must be in the right form, and these are more difficult to obtain. One cannot simply eat them because many foods have them in incorrect form today, especially fruits. This is just one reason we do not recommend eating any fruit today.

Fertilizers, fruit and more. As to why fruit today all contains incorrect forms of some vital minerals, it is complex. In part, it is due to almost universal use of superphosphate fertilizers that do not properly nourish the plants, but actually stimulate them, instead. It is also the result of general depletion of the soils in many areas of the world.

Some of our vegetables, meats, eggs and other foods also have this same problem to some degree, though it is less critical than the problems with fruits. However, the overall result is that the electron transport system begins to decline in power in almost everyone by the age of 10 or so. At this time, the person usually moves into a state of slow oxidation, as reported on a properly performed and properly interpreted hair tissue mineral test. (At this time – 2013 – I have not found a reliable way to measure the oxidation rate in the blood, urine or by other common tests.)

HOW DOES THE ELECTRON TRANSPORT SYSTEM PRODUCE ATP?

Basically, one molecule of ADP (adenosine di-phosphate) is connected to one molecule of NADH via a special double-bonded carbon atom. This bond is called the carbonyl double bond. Then a molecule of phosphorus is bound to the molecule of NADH, also by a special type of double bond, though it is not a carbonyl bond. The double bonds are critical, as they seem to allow electrons to flow easily across from one of the compounds to the other. This is why the system is called electron transport.

The next step is that the phosphorus is released onto the ADP, forming the higher energy compound called ATP. The NADH becomes NAD, which is recycled back and used over again, just as ATP (adenosine tri-phosphate) is recycled as ADP and used again. This is the basic mechanism.

This mechanism sounds simple, but it is anything but simple. Dr. Koch worked for years to understand it, and his insights are found in the biochemistry books. What is not known, however, is how nutrition figures into the system. Here is the basic setup:

Phosphorus, as you might imagine, is central for the electron transport system. It is the “fiery element” needed to hold a high electrical charge and deliver it to where it is needed in the body.

Copper is needed to transform the P or phosphorus atom from a simple phosphorus atom or compound into the high-energy phosphorus compound needed for ATP.

Iron is needed to transform the NADH so that it can receive the P and be attached to the ADP.

Manganese is needed in other steps, earlier in the Krebs or carboxylic acid cycle and glycolysis cycle.

Other nutrients such as coenzyme Q-10 (ubiquinone) are involved, as well, but are not as critical as the minerals, in most cases.

Amigos or oxides harmful. The forms of copper, iron, manganese and other elements in the system are critical. For example, most adults have too much of the “amigo forms” of iron, manganese and even copper in their electron transport system. This damages the chemical reaction badly.

The so-called “amigo form” is an oxide, in most cases, and it is not the most active form or compound of the minerals. To read more about this, read The Amigos – Iron, Manganese and Aluminum on this website.

This is the basic mechanism of the electron transport system. It looks simple in the biochemistry books, but it is not, and the nutrients above, perhaps with others, too, are absolutely needed in the right amounts and proportions to make it work right.

A PURE BIO-ENERGETIC APPROACH TO HEALTH AND HEALING

As you can see, minerals play a vital role in the electron transport system! As a result, if anything goes wrong nutritionally, energy production is seriously compromised, and that is exactly what we observe in clinical practice. The ultimate result is every disease imaginable, just depending upon where the energy problem occurs, such as in the liver or kidneys, or elsewhere.

This might be called a purely bio-energetic understanding of health and disease. The idea is that if one’s energy is high enough, health occurs, if energy production decreases, then tissue breakdown, invasion by pathogens, inflammation, necrosis, or tumor formation may occur, and disease is the result.

NUTRITIONAL BALANCING AND ELECTRON TRANSPORT

Nutritional balancing science is geared to correcting the electron transport system better than any other system I have seen. Many doctors today offer methods to deal with mitochondrial dysfunction such as the use of anti-oxidants, B-complex vitamins, and others. However, we find these are not enough, and they often unbalance the body chemistry when not applied correctly.

Unfortunately, unbalancing the body with nutrients and foods is common. However, when the body is out of balance, the enzyme substrates are not correct and the enzymes do not function well, even if the nutrients are provided.

Dr. Eck’s unique contribution, which I have continued to refine, but in most cases left unchanged, is to assess exactly how much to give of each nutrient and food.

The methods used to help restore the electron transport system are to improve nutrition, elimination of toxins, balance of the autonomic nervous system, enhance etheric or subtle energy, enhance nerve energy through proper care of the spine, improve the channel system of the body, and more. For example, a properly designed nutritional balancing program will:

1. Make the body more yang. This helps detoxify the body more than any other method. Also important is to avoid excess yin such as eating sugar, fruit and other yin foods such as nuts and seeds.

2. Balance the Na/K ratio. This improves the electrical balance of the cells, which is needed to allow the electrons to jump from the NadH to the phosphorus.

3. Balance the oxidation ratio. This allows the body to produce more energy because it helps balance the enzyme substrates needed for thousands or millions of enzyme reactions throughout the body.

4. Send more energy downward. This increases energy production by adding more etheric energy to the body.

5. Correct autonomic imbalances such as yang rising and sympathetic dominance.

6. Use chiropractic, reflexology, coffee enemas and other methods to balance and open the spinal channels and other channels of energy in the body.

Avoiding all the other nutrients is just as important because they will interfere with the desired nutrients, competing with them for absorption in the intestines, and sometimes competing for metabolic utilization, as well.

These problems are very common, I find, when clients see other practitioners who are using symptomatic methods or what I call “the garbage pail” approach to nutrition. This is the method of just filling a person with nutrients, like filling a pail with water, and it ignores the antagonisms and competition between nutrients that always occurs. It is also the problem of the “balanced diet”. The diet must be correct the client, not “balanced”.

Nutritional balancing depends upon delicate balancing of the major tissue mineral levels and ratios in a particular way, and this is the only way I have found to properly recommend foods and supplementary nutrients. This is the main difference between this method and all the others.

References

A website with much more about Dr. Koch’s work is http://www.williamfkoch.com

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