Ray's View On Receptors?

[Suikerbuik]

Could someone tell me the vision of Ray Peat onto receptors? From my point of view, from reading through his articles, I can only come to the conclusion that Ray believes in receptors.
But not in the pharmaceutical drugs, because than a drug would have the complete same properties as the original subastance that actives receptors in the same way and thus same genes.

I think here's the problem, (I could be wrong in interpreting) but I often read "Ray doesn't believe in receptors"

Once again I think Ray actually does, but sees the complexity regarding the receptor theory. A few examples that come to my mind when I think about receptors and implying how I read Ray's work and what I know.

Receptors are though studying because:
- ednless amount of binding places and different angles at which a molecule can bind
- different concentrations and different affinities leading to unknown effects on receptors (activating or deactiating)
- different conformational changes caused by different substances (ligands), the previous automaticly leading to receptors that possible activate different/other genes than the orignal ligand does, or probably having a different binding capacity to a heterodimeric receptor, or different affinities to different genes (it's know to regulate).
- There's also different concentraties of receptors in different tissue and varying per person,
- and also pretty unknown how these proteins are actually regulated.
- things I forgot or didn't even think about.

For those who don't get it. Structure is Function, thus different structure is a different function, and the structure possibilities in biology are seemingly endless.

 

[Such_Saturation]

He has said that the whole cell is the receptor, and the state of the cell defines a large part of the effect that the messenger has.

 

[Blossom]

Reading Gilbert Ling has helped me begin to understand this topic although I am still working on his book Life at the Cell band Below Cell Level. I definitely don't feel confident enough to explain it's position to others!

 

[Suikerbuik]

Thank you Such_Saturation, great description! Exactly what I had hoped for.

Yeah Blossom, I already tried to get my hands on that book recently, but not so easy here in The Netherlands unfortunately.. If anybody has any advice, that would be great! (most worldwide sellers didn't have to book in stock, only seen some in the USA)

 

[Blossom]

I will look in my copy of the book when I get home tonight and post the ordering information for you. I requested it as a holiday gift so I'm not sure where my copy came from.

 

[Blossom]

Ordering info for Gilbert Ling's book: 877-390-7730 or email:[email protected]

 

[jaguar43]

Could someone tell me the vision of Ray Peat onto receptors? From my point of view, from reading through his articles, I can only come to the conclusion that Ray believes in receptors.
But not in the pharmaceutical drugs, because than a drug would have the complete same properties as the original subastance that actives receptors in the same way and thus same genes.

I think here's the problem, (I could be wrong in interpreting) but I often read "Ray doesn't believe in receptors"

Once again I think Ray actually does, but sees the complexity regarding the receptor theory. A few examples that come to my mind when I think about receptors and implying how I read Ray's work and what I know.

Receptors are though studying because:
- ednless amount of binding places and different angles at which a molecule can bind
- different concentrations and different affinities leading to unknown effects on receptors (activating or deactiating)
- different conformational changes caused by different substances (ligands), the previous automaticly leading to receptors that possible activate different/other genes than the orignal ligand does, or probably having a different binding capacity to a heterodimeric receptor, or different affinities to different genes (it's know to regulate).
- There's also different concentraties of receptors in different tissue and varying per person,
- and also pretty unknown how these proteins are actually regulated.
- things I forgot or didn't even think about.

For those who don't get it. Structure is Function, thus different structure is a different function, and the structure possibilities in biology are seemingly endless.

*Note 1: I don’t want to imply that the receptor theory is wrong just because it allows for the introduction of innumerable experimental artifacts; it is primarily wrong because it is tied to the profoundly irrelevant “membrane theory” of cell regulation.

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/se ... sion.shtml

 

[aguilaroja]

I make no claim to represent Dr. Peat. As an occasional reader I give this brief impression:

There is no doubt that at boundaries there is an elegant interface, with local and distant connectivity. The cell is intelligent throughout, as an array of interdependent energy and structure.

The "lock and key" receptor-ligand notion is a kluge notion 'designed' in part to explain away the idea of an inert unintelligent lipid bilayer cell membrane 'barrier'. The cell membrane bilayer model unfortunately does not fit a lot of experimental facts. An early chapter in Gerald Pollack's book "Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life" summarizes some of this data (with references.

One observation is that holes can be poked in a membrane and it takes a long time for molecules to leak out and in, too long to explained by a passive barrier or some pumps.

There are many articles at http://gilbertling.org/ is addition to his books, which are excellent while being demanding reads.

 

[aguilaroja]

Some important historical working ideas are mentioned in this newsletter:

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/pa ... tric.shtml

some excerpts:

"The dominant view in biology... is that all decisive cellular processes involve the direct mechanical contact of one molecule with another, the activation of a lock (an enzyme or receptor) by a key that has the right shape, or the adhesion of a molecule to another substance according to its chemical composition. An alternative view, now clearly supported by the evidence, is that there are forces that aren't merely between molecular surfaces, but rather that the local conditions at the surfaces of proteins and other molecules, and the properties of the solvent water, are modified by the surrounding conditions. It is this alternative view that is now making progress in understanding disease and health, regeneration and degeneration."

"Polanyi also showed that the strength and rigidity of a crystal were altered when the crystal was immersed in water. Again, such an influence of a surface on the over-all physical properties of a solid substance had no noticeable effect on the scientific culture, although his results were published in the major journals."

"In 1933 J.D. Bernal had proposed a structural model of water that contained a considerable amount of order (Bernal and Fowler, 1933) but by the 1950s the idea of spontaneous ordering in water was out of style, and he worked out a more random structure. Max Perutz, continuing the study of hemoglobin he had begun with Bernal, became concerned with long range forces acting through water: 'The nature of the forces which keep particles parallel and equidistant across such great thicknesses of water is not yet clear.'"

"The question regarding the nature of the forces at surfaces or interfaces affects how we think about everything, from life to nuclear energy. The political and economic implications of "non-local energy" (which is most obvious at surfaces) have at times led to organized campaigns to discourage research in those areas. When Alexandre Rothen found (beginning in 1946) that enzymes and antibodies had non-local effects, several prestigious publications claimed to show how he must have been mistaken...."

 

[Such_Saturation]

Pollack seems to be Ling's spiritual successor, and It's pretty amazing to see how little he is being ostracized. Admittedly in his lectures he never talks about Ling or the biological consequences of EZ water... what burden he must feel. His Institute for Venture Science idea seems to be catching on as well!

 

[CellularIconoclast]

Pollack seems to be Ling's spiritual successor, and It's pretty amazing to see how little he is being ostracized. Admittedly in his lectures he never talks about Ling or the biological consequences of EZ water... what burden he must feel. His Institute for Venture Science idea seems to be catching on as well!

I think a big challenge to academic acceptance of Dr. Ling's work is his attitude of "you're all idiots and the stuff you're studying isn't even real." This insults peoples egos, and so they never even look at what he has to say. I am not convinced there is a grand conspiracy to suppress Dr. Ling's work, I think most of the people dismissing it just never put in the considerable effort required to understand his ideas and evidence.

My experience is that *most* professors are excited to learn about almost any new idea, but only if it doesn't insult their ego or make their past work appear pointless and stupid.

Dr. Pollack has a lot of tact, and is a very skillful teacher. He presents the same exact concepts but in a different way: as an extra phenomena to understand, instead of in opposition to others work. For this reason, he can say the same things as Ling but is much better received. His book "Cells, Gels, and the Engines of Life" is written in the style of an extremely clear undergraduate textbook with numerous illustrations and photos. It's very easy to read and understand.

Related to this, I think when Dr. Peat says "receptors don't exist" or "membranes don't exist" what I think he really means is that he he has disagreements about the textbook descriptions of their structure and function. I do not think he would doubt that the surface of a cell is covered with specifically localized lipids and proteins, and those proteins are localized to this region for functional reasons.

I think even most of the researchers studying these "membranes" and "receptors" would also argue that the textbook concepts associated with those words are so over-simplified as to be nearly meaningless, but perhaps for different reasons than Dr. Peat.

 

[Blossom]

I'm interested in Pollack's book you mentioned and believe forum member 5magicbeans has spoken highly him also. I'm a great fan of Ling of course but I think if possible we should read all that we can on the topic. Maybe the time is becoming right for these truths to start being accepted. I sure hope so and think it can only bring positive changes.

 

[j.]

My experience is that *most* professors are excited to learn about almost any new idea

My experience is that most are close-minded and unwilling to have their beliefs challenged. I think their credentials have more to do with patience to go through the hoops than intelligence.

, but only if it doesn't insult their ego or make their past work appear pointless and stupid.

That to me seems to confirm and validate the charge that they're idiots. If you have to stroke someone's ego to be able to tell them they're wrong, they have a problem.

 

[CellularIconoclast]

If you have to stroke someone's ego to be able to tell them they're wrong, they have a problem.

I agree that is a problem, but it seems somewhat universal, and not confined to academia.

Even though it's frustrating, I think understanding this can be useful when getting things accomplished in life. I think you can better predict how receptive someone will be to a new idea based on how the idea is presented, rather than any actual properties of the idea.

 

[Such_Saturation]

These primarily weak and insecure minds get chills at the thought of having to rewrite biology from the ground up. Even the non-locality components of life that would not call quantum effects into the matter are too much for them to handle inasmuch that they would predispose a new and different kind of complexity for the subject, a complexity which would render their nine-to-five approach to science essentially moot. It seems their definition of "magic" or "pseudoscience " arises from the same bigotry that the church used to excercise, now driven by this funding grant/impact factor game of thrones.

I understand Ray Peat's idea of the cell "border" as a protein matrix to which lipids "layer" from both sides.

 

[CellularIconoclast]

having to rewrite biology from the ground up

I don't really understand your "rewrite biology from the ground up" viewpoint, can you explain what you mean?

I don't think I understand it all, but I've been trying to understand the history and context of this issue. As a biomedical researcher here are my current thoughts:

I think Pollack and Ling's books are shocking in their big picture interpretation of cell physiology, but few of the specific experimental details would be surprising or controversial to researchers working in those fields. This seems to be a product of hyper-specialization, biology has very few high level theorists integrating ideas across fields and considering the broader implications (as Ray Peat does). The undergrad textbooks are ridiculous, but those aren't what research scientists actually use when thinking about biology- they focus on the published experimental results specific to the narrow phenomena they study. It's hard to appreciate how narrow this typically is- often entire careers are based on the behavior of one or two amino acids within a single protein. Many of the most productive researchers have never even opened one of those undergrad textbooks. Others looked at them decades ago as undergrads, and they don't remember much of it because it seems to have little relevance to their current area of research.

This itself is rapidly changing at the moment as systems biology is becoming more popular (and more practical, as we have more experimental data to look at). The researchers in highly specialized fields however are not idiots, they are legitimately uncovering new details of real biological phenomena by looking critically at the evidence.

So I see these ideas as more of an addition than a re-write. There are additional phenomena going on in the cell, and these lead to a new perspective on what is most important to look at next. We do need a lot more systems level thinking in biology and medicine, but this is enabled by the details uncovered with highly specialized investigations of molecular phenomena.

None of Ray's ideas would be possible if he didn't have hundreds of thousands of accurate observations made by academic specialists which he integrates together in his theories. I am somewhat frustrated by many seemingly meaningless 'anti-biology' statements I see in this community. I think people who study Ray's work without any context or training from mainstream biology misinterpret his criticisms of mainstream biology.

 

[j.]

^ Their work resulted in wrong recommendations in almost all fields, if they're not idiots they're mostly useless. Most of the good discoveries and studies that were made, which Ray based his work on, were done by researchers who lived decades, if not a hundred years ago. But the current researchers are mostly idiots or useless.

 

[CellularIconoclast]

Most of the good discoveries and studies that were made, which Ray based his work on, were done by researchers who lived decades, if not a hundred years ago.

To play devil's advocate, what if Ray is just old, and those were the data he had to work with when he formed his ideas? Most of those researchers themselves didn't see the bigger implications of their work, this only became apparent much later when synthesizing it with other findings.I think there are a lot of surprising new observations from basic biology research that nobody has taken the time to synthesize into bigger picture views.

I go to academic presentations (colloquia) several times a week, and I regularly see people present new experimental observations that are very surprising, and don't seem to fit into any existing theoretical framework (mainstream or otherwise).

 

[j.]

To play devil's advocate, what if Ray is just old, and those were the data he had to work with when he formed his ideas?

He formed his views on PUFAs partly on studies that were done before he was born. In his writings, he makes very explicit his view that a lot of the 'research' that is done today really are PR releases for the drug companies, he used this exact analogy.

 

[CellularIconoclast]

In his writings, he makes very explicit his view that a lot of the 'research' that is done today really are PR releases for the drug companies, he used this exact analogy.

Yea, it's important to consider an authors motivation and funding. There are many papers put out by the pharmaceutical industry itself, as well as academic research funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Much of it is just PR, but I have seen some basic research from the pharmaceutical industry that I thought was interesting and well done. There are cases of people publishing innovative and controversial work from pharmaceutical industry labs, such as Alexander Shulgins work on psychedelics at Dow and Bio-Rad.

However, much of academic biology research has little ties to pharma, because they're investigating phenomena that pharmaceutical companies consider irrelevant/non-marketable/non-patentable. Many people are studying biological phenomena that only occur in non-human species with no apparent commercial relevance.