This episode is a discussion about the wisdom of the body in healing itself by processes of which we are not aware. The body is a complex biological vehicle with amazing recuperative powers - a blessing from Heavenly Father for our mortal probation. An interview with medical researcher Lon Cook, who reviews the healing of the heart, skin, joint, and bones.
This is the podcast “Science and Scriptures” Episode #6 – “The Wisdom of the Body with Lon Cook”
Hello again. This is Scott Frazer and I would like to welcome you to episode #6 of the podcast Science and Scriptures. In our last 3 episodes, we discussed what you might say to an Atheist, a Creationist, and a Person who has Lost Their Faith. We are going to leave that topic for a time, but perhaps pick it up again in a future show.
Today’s podcast is entitled, “The Wisdom of the Body”. If you remember the episode “What you might say to an Atheist”, we discussed the impossibly low probability that the evolution of life could have happened without the directing hand of a Creator. Because life is so complex, a higher intelligence had to have directed its creation. Our bodies are greatly under-appreciated for the complex processes they perform for us automatically and invisibly, without our knowledge. Most parents recognize that the creation of a child in the womb is extraordinarily complex, and very few couples will claim they know the process or how to direct it. The ability of our bodies to heal damage and wounds is yet another complex capability that few people understand.
But to appreciate the complexity and the enormity of the gift your Heavenly Father has provided for your earthly probation, we should discuss the mechanisms of the body on occasion. Such understanding tends to generate appreciation and even humility in the understanding that your body works very hard to keep you alive and functioning.
I want to emphasize this point and asked a long-time friend of mine, Lon Cook, to help us understand the “Wisdom of the Body”. Lon and I met when we both worked for a medical device manufacturer called W.L. Gore & Associates, in Flagstaff Arizona. Lon is a Latter-day Saint and has served as a bishop in Massachusetts and in a singles student ward while at BYU.
Lon has his PHD in Chemical Engineering with an emphasis on Biomedical Engineering and Tissue Engineering from MIT. He has worked in the medical device industry his whole career. At Gore, Lon developed products for the cardiac medical device field. He left there and worked for Advanced Technologies and Regenerative Medicine, a division of Johnson & Johnson, which also manufactures joint replacement products. So Lon has researched cardiac tissue, joints, and bones.
Lastly, I want to emphasize that there will be no quiz after this podcast. I want you to listen to Lon’s explanations with the simple goal to better appreciate the self-repairing capacity of your body. One of the purposes of this podcast is to help generate wonder and awe at the world we live in - and thus come to better appreciate the wisdom and care that our Heavenly Father took in providing it. Your body is not a lucky accident of random evolution – nothing of its complexity could be. So let’s talk about some of the hidden capacities of the body.
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Lon, you are my first guest interview on this podcast. Congratulations. Did you want to add a little more detail to my introduction?
Hi Scott, thanks for inviting me to join you today. I will add that after working in Industry for 17 years, I taught Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering at Brigham Young University for 7 years, but have now returned to the real world and I am currently a consultant to the Medical Device industry, including companies that develop and sell cardiac monitoring products and tissue engineered wound healing products. I am excited to discuss this topic with you today.
I would like to ask you the following questions.
I know you worked in the cardiac field because we worked at the same company. Could you explain the healing process of the cardiac system – heart, arteries, and veins? How does the body know it’s injured and what does it do to heal itself?
The cardiac system is exactly like the rest of the systems of the body. We have circulating white blood cells that constantly pass by every cell in the body and detect any injury.
We can say that even while we are asleep and unaware, the body’s defense mechanisms are ready to repair any injury they find. The first step is for the white blood cells to detect that there is cell debris (parts of dead or dying cells or extracellular matrix proteins – collagen mostly, with some GAGs) or a bacteria or virus that needs to be cleaned up. The circulating white cells then stop and anchor themselves to the damaged location and call on more cells to assist by releasing cytokines. The cytokines diffuse away from the damaged location but there is a constant supply of them being released so it leaves a concentration gradient to help the repair cells find the right location to repair. The repair cells (macrophages) eat up the damaged cells and surrounding tissue and then start to lay down new tissue (replicating cells and ECM) to restore the functional tissue.
Sometimes the repair that is needed is like filling in a gap in the muscle with cement rather than new muscle. This is what happens if there is bleeding. A thrombin clot fills in and then ideally it remodels slowly, but if not, it leads to a scar – which contains tissue that is denser than is normally found in that location.
1a. Is the healing of a skin wound similar?
The skin would be considered a soft tissue, and has a more flexible extracellular matrix, but the same process for detection of damage and repair.
You also worked in the artificial joints market. Is the healing system of bones and joints similar to the healing of muscle? How do bones and joints heal?
Bones are constantly being remodeled. There are growth factors embedded in the hard matrix of the bone that identify the matrix as bone. (BMP or bone morphogenetic proteins). Specialized cells similar to macrophages called Osteoclasts move through the bone and eat it up and release the BMP’s for the repair cells called osteoblasts to know that there is supposed to be bone there. As we grow from infant to child to adult, the bones are elongating and growing based on genetic signals. Bones are highly vascularized, so the repair cells can find the damage quickly – and bone generally remodels without scarring. The liver is another organ that is highly vascularized and doesn’t scar when repaired.
Joints have a different set of growth factors called growth and differentiation factors (GDF) that identify the tissue where bone, ligament, tendon and cartilage all should be created. It is an intricate system that is encoded in our DNA and is remarkable at how well it works.
The other tissues in the skeletal system, such as cartilage, ligaments, and tendons do not have the same blood supply and take longer to repair. Blood also supplies nutrients needed for repair such as sugars, amino acids and oxygen.
2a. Are we as a nation hard on our joints? I have a fused right ankle and an artificial left knee, both of which were first injured while playing sports in my youth. Why do joints injured in your youth come back to afflict you in older age?
Joints are more prone to injury because they are designed to provide flexibility and therefore are not as solid as bones or other continuous tissues such as muscle or skin. From an engineering perspective, they are the weak points in the system, but also are more complex because they contain ligaments, tendons, cartilage and synovial fluid to help lubricate the joints as they move. So they are more difficult to heal. The fusion of joints provides stability and is the natural process of a degenerated joint – the body just joins the bones together rather than repair the tissue – and that is the easiest way to heal the joint, but flexibility is lost.
Plant based diet with lots of fruits and vegetables. Complex carbohydrates are the main source of fuel for our bodies. Some meat (protein) is fine, but sparingly. Fish is better than chicken and pork which are better than beef. Some fat is not bad, and is actually needed for brain health.The healthy fat is Omega-3 fatty acids.The biggest factor that can be changed quickly is added sugar. Control your simple sugar intake – especially if there is a family history of diabetes.Diabesity is a real epidemic right now in the United States. Maintain a constant healthy weight. Know when you feel heavy and can’t function well. Too thin is not good either for brain health and to have the energy to move and function comfortably. You should be able to walk up 1 flight of stairs quickly without getting winded.You should also be able to walk for an hour on a level surface without getting tired or having to stop and rest.Be careful of sudden bursts of running or jumping as you get older, since the tissues like cartilage and the Achilles tendon become dehydrated and brittle and break easier. Bones get thinner also as we age. One new injury that I discovered recently is the joint between the bones in the spine and the ribs, called a costovertebral joint that has a ligament to connect the vertebra to the rib bone. I sprained the ligament doing yard work in March this year, and Wow was that painful, and took about 3 months to fully heal.
Does your body treat damage due to addictions (like smoking damage to lungs, alcohol damage to a liver, and general drug addiction damage to the brain) like it would any other injury?
Yes, the body’s healing mechanism doesn’t discriminate between physical injury like a cut, break or bruise, or a chemical injury or a biological invader like a bacteria or virus.
COVID-19 has generated a lot of criticism of our medical systems – the World Health Organization, Center for Disease Control, National Institute of Health, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. How would you judge America’s medical system? How well do you think it has responded to the COVID-19 challenge?
The medical system is comprised of imperfect people.They wake up each day and do the best they can. We can do better but I believe they are heroes.
One of the Rules of Earth life is that we must die. As we become elderly, all our systems start shutting down. Our brains shrink, we lose teeth and musculature. Our joints get arthritic. It seems like our bodies are telling us to prepare for death, because our ‘turn on earth’ is about over. How does age affect our body’s biochemistry?
Every cell in our body replicates on a normal schedule. Each time the cell divides, it recreates the DNA inside of the cell so that it has the ability to divide again later. One thing that happens, is that each time the DNA replicates the ends of the DNA become shorter and lose some information. It is called Telomere shortening – whether it is just a way to keep track of the age of the cells so they can be replaced more quickly, or the telomere causes the symptoms of aging, we don’t know, but we are programmed to die, it is inevitable.
Lots of ways to interpret it – evolutionarily, religiously, societally, etc. Biologically, it is just observed, the biology doesn’t answer the question Why?
Do you think our bodies are programmed to die at a certain age?
Well, each cell has a process called apoptosis that is programmed cell death, and therefore cumulatively, yes we are programmed to die, but No, there isn’t a certain age that is normal to die.That is highly dependent on many factors. The average lifespan has been increasing in the last century due to insights we have gained from science and practices we have implemented such as medicines to fight off infections. There are a lot of factors such as genetic and environmental, and then there are catastrophic diseases such as cancer that will alter the average age.
From a religious perspective…it doesn’t matter…all will be given an opportunity to experience all of life’s lessons and make and keep covenants.
Lon, is there anything else you would like to add to this discussion?
It has been a pleasure to speak about these topics with you Scott. Good to see you again.
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So, this is Scott Frazer from Science and Scriptures, and I thank you for listening. Next week we will have an interview with Tim Taylor, a Deputy County Attorney for Utah County. We will be discussing the Rule of Law – or the principle that all people and institutions are subject to laws that are fairly applied and enforced. This principle has been under a great deal of fire for the past several months and I thought it would be a good topic for discussion.
So, till next week, take care.