Parkinson's Disease and clay

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Nice piece I love it. Research has been validating clays in more ways thanwe are aware of. Here is another one. I have not heard of clays influence is arresting conditions of Parkinson’sbut it can help in aiding the body in other ways that support health. Anyone else know if any results in this area? Perry October 24, 2003Clays May Have Aided Formation of Primordial CellsHoward Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have discovered thatclays may have been the catalysts that spurred the spontaneous assembly offatty acids into the small sacs that ultimately evolved into the firstliving cells.HHMI investigator Jack W. Szostak< http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/szostak.html> and colleaguesMartin M. Hanczyc and Shelly M. Fujikawa at Massachusetts General Hospitalalso demonstrated that these vesicles could be induced to grow and to splitinto separate vesicles under laboratory conditions. They reported theirstudies in the October 24, 2003, issue of the journal Science . “We are not claiming that this is how life started. We are saying that wehave demonstrated growth and division without any biochemical machinery.”Jack W. SzostakSzostak and his colleagues were prompted to perform their experiments by theearlier work of other researchers who had found that clays could catalyzethe chemical reactions needed to construct RNA from building blocks callednucleotides. They reasoned that if clays could foster the formation ofvesicles, it would not be inconceivable that clay particles that had RNA ontheir surface could end up inside such vesicles. If that were true, theresult would offer conditions amenable to the eventual evolution of livingcells that could self-reproduce.“Other researchers had observed that if fatty acid micelles, which arestable at basic conditions, are exposed to more acidic conditions, theyspontaneously assemble into vesicles,” said Szostak. “This reaction has along lag period, and some sort of nucleation surface is required to triggerthe process. We reasoned that if the right kind of mineral surface waspresent, this lag phase would be eliminated.”In their experiments, Szostak and his colleagues found that adding smallquantities of the clay, montmorillonite, to fatty acid micelles greatlyaccelerated the formation of vesicles. They also discovered that many othersubstances with negatively-charged surfaces also catalyzed formation ofvesicles.When the researchers loaded montmorillonite particles with a fluorescentlylabeled RNA and added those particles to micelles, they detected theRNA-loaded particles inside the resulting vesicles. And, going a stepfurther, Szostak and his colleagues showed that when they encapsulatedlabeled RNA alone inside vesicles, it did not leak out.“Thus, we have demonstrated that not only can clay and other mineralsurfaces accelerate vesicle assembly, but assuming that the clay ends upinside at least some of the time, this provides a pathway by which RNA couldget into vesicles,” said Szostak.However, he said, even primitive, non-living, cell-like structures need amechanism to grow and divide. Thus, the scientists explored the behavior ofvesicles to which micelles had been added—finding that acidic conditionsinduced the micelles to become unstable and somehow incorporate themselvesinto a growing vesicle.“After we showed that efficient growth was possible, the next problem washow to complete the cycle by persuading these vesicles to divide,” saidSzostak. The scientists discovered that if they extruded largerdye-containing vesicles through smaller pores, the result was aproliferation of smaller vesicles, which still contained dye.“Exactly how this proliferation happens is not clear, and there aredifferent models for the processes,” said Szostak. “The important thing isthat it all works. You end up with small vesicles in which the contents staymostly inside. This is important if the process is to be vaguely analogousto biological cell division,” he said.“Now that we have a proof-of-principle that growth and division is possiblein a purely physical-chemical system, we are working on a way to get thiscycle to function in a way that is more natural,” said Szostak. “Clearly,there are a lot of complicated and interesting processes going on here, andhow this pathway leads to biological systems is not at all straightforward.“We are not claiming that this is how life started,” emphasized Szostak. “Weare saying that we have demonstrated growth and division without anybiochemical machinery. Ultimately, if we can demonstrate more natural waysthis might have happened, it may begin to give us clues about how life couldhave actually gotten started on the primitive Earth.”In particular, said Szostak, further research should aim to demonstrate thatthe formation of RNA or a related polymer molecule could occur concurrentlywith vesicle replication. “Ultimately, we'd like to put them together andhave replicating RNA inside a replicating vesicle,” said Szostak. “If wecould demonstrate both processes under arbitrary laboratory conditions, wecould begin to work toward making them work under more and more naturalconditions.” Perry A~ Arledge626 Scheel ~ Kyle, TX 78640512-262-7187 ~ 512-532-6086 Fax1-866-883-1591 ~perrya on Behalf Of iblvnluv2Sunday, August 17, 2008 11:36 PMQuestion re: Parkinson's Disease First of all I'd like to post an article I came across in one of myrandom researches. It just goes to show how wonderful and importantclay really is! It was from a website called Bio-Medicine (just wantto make sure I acknowledge where I got it from). Then I'd like to ask if anyone has information on using clay to helpcure or alleviate symptoms of Parkinson's? Thanks,Shawna Bio-Medicine Article ~ Clay made animal life possible on Earth, a UC Riverside-led studyfinds. A sudden increase in oxygen in the Earth's recent geologicalhistory, widely considered necessary for the expansion of animal life,occurred just as the rate of clay formation on the Earth's surfacealso increased, the researchers report. "Our study shows for the first time that the initial soils coveringthe terrestrial surface of Earth increased the production of clayminerals and provided the critical geochemical processes necessary tooxygenate the atmosphere and support multicellular animal life," saidMartin Kennedy, an associate professor of sedimentary geology andgeochemistry at UCR, who led the study.