Humans absorb nutrients/chemicals from air, just like they absorb them from food
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Well, duh! This is probably quite obvious to most of my readers, but I am posting it here since most people rarely think of the type of air they are breathing, or consciously select geographical areas based on specific “aeronutrients” (as opposed to gastronutrients) likely to be absorbed there. The study below claims that we absorb a significant amount of essential nutrients, and especially trace minerals, from air and not just food. This may explain the “paradoxes” or why people living in specific areas (e.g. high altitude) and eating a very restrictive diet (e.g. bread and dairy) can not only maintain good health, but thrive and often enjoy strikingly long lifespans (like this youngster, who lived to 168 and died not of old age, but injury/infection). The higher CO2 retention at altitude probably explains a good deal of the health and longevity, but does not explain the lack of nutrient deficiencies that must invariably develop on a restrictive diet. The only possible explanation is that the environment somehow provides those nutrients through a non-gastric pathway, and apparently breathing is a major such pathway. It has been known for millennia that the air in certain locales is unique and therapeutic, even when not at high altitude, and I think the study below provides some ideas why. I have personally noticed that coniferous forests have a profoundly calming and antidepressant effect on me and people around me, and this may be due to the various aromatic terpenes such trees emit in the air. Many of those terpenes raise GABA and/or dopamine, which would explain their anxiolytic and antidepressant effects.
There is also a flip side to that coin – i.e. inhaling air with nefarious ingredients. The dangers of polluted air are well-known, but what I have in mind is something more obscure and ignored even by doctors. Namely, breathing next to or close by people taking various pharmaceutical drugs with known negative effects on health, especially psychotropic drugs such as SSRI, antipsychotics, estrogens, synthetic progestins, etc. Many studies have demonstrated that people taking such drugs exhale measurable quantities of them, and of course people in the physical proximity of the exhaler then inhale those drugs. This could explain many uncomfortable situations where a person in a social setting can cause a profound negative reaction in people around him/her often without any visible behavioral reason. Even without taking any pharmaceutical drugs, sick people are likely to affect people around them through their exhaled breath, which would probably contain high amounts of (of endogenous origin) serotonin, cortisol, estrogen, histamine, nitric oxide (NO), lipid peroxides, etc. This phenomenon can also explain why medical personnel working in specific wards get sicker at much higher rates than the general population and often come down with the same conditions as the patients they take care of (e.g. kidney disease in nephrology wards, liver disease in hepatology wards, cancer in oncology wards, etc). In other words, it is important to be mindful not only of the geographical area and its air composition (and I don’t mean just pollution), but also of the people we associate with and the drugs they take. If you find that somebody you often associate with tends to sour up your mood/digestion/wellness without any obvious effort on their part, it may be the air that they are exhaling (and the pheromones their skin emits), so precautionary measures may need to be taken or contact with the person kept short(er).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39486624
https://www.sciencealert.com/your-body-can-absorb-vitamins-directly-from-air-evidence-shows
“…When we think of nutrients, we think of things we obtain from our diet. But a careful look at the scientific literature shows there is strong evidence humans can also absorb some nutrients from the air. In a new perspective article published in Advances in Nutrition, we call these inhaled nutrients “aeronutrients” – to differentiate them from the “gastronutrients” that are absorbed by the gut. We propose that breathing supplements our diet with essential nutrients such as iodine, zinc, manganese, and some vitamins.”
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@haidut Holly pasta .....
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I just got out of the hospital (Johns Hopkins) with Pemphigus.
Over half my body was burned.
Tested positive for Pseudomonas on blood cultures.
In the last 2 years, no one with my "affliction" left the hospital alive... yes - thrilled to be recovering nicely and typing this now.
Now:
I eat EXTREMELY clean. Mostly making stratch-made, animal-based foods and fast-digesting carbs - basically following the Saladino way of eating.
I live in Lancaster County, PA next to the Amish.
It bothers my wife I don't stress about much.
Get at least 90 minutes of deep REM sleep nightly.
Spend a lot of time in the sun.
Hit the gym to build muscle. (It wouldn't surprise me if someone at the same exhaled their COVID poison in my direction.)
Etc.
But I still got attacked with an "autoimmune" disease. No idea how I got it. And no cure. (I don't believe that by the way... I'm just repeating what the Sickness Industrial Complex says about autoimmune diseases.)
Thank you for posting this. Because I think I got ill from absorbing bad juju from other people.
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How to mitigate the exposure as a nurse? Half my waking life I'm breathing air infused with death, disease, literal shit, quinolones and decay. Would a personal/portable negative ion generator be helpful?
Shedding, skin to skin exposure, droplets.. This info might finally be a tipping point in quitting my job.Edit: actually this makes so much sense. If we can analyze bloodethanol through a breathalyzer, if we can smell when a patient is in ketoacidosis, why wouldnt there be drugmetabolites and hormones in exhaled air.
That maybe partly explains my preference for intubated patients. -
@haidut I believe you posted a study many years back talking about how people with negative emotional behaviours (or maybe stress indicating hormone panels?) like being in the proximity of healthier people and the negativity can spread?
I can't remember the metric used to measure this but it's interesting that this may be the primary driver behind it physically, perhaps there is even a spectrum to this with people's preferred environment let alone humans preferred social circles.
For example John may love a beach even in colder weather because of the sea air replenishing some nutrient he lacks in elsewhere in his life. Same with people who love walking in forests compared to plains etc, I realize geography also plays a large part in this example. -
Ask him on twitter if you're there Dk. These are auto-posted from his blog.
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Ah I unfortunately don't but thanks for letting me know.
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I'm new here and I was about to comment on this thread, but then I saw the comment about auto-posting.
How can you tell if a thread is auto posted?
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Would this explain that animals in barren areas such as polar bears and African elephants tended to be larger than their forest counterparts, due to lack of allergens in the air?
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@Ena - I do not believe that you can determine if a post is automatically posted just by looking at it here on the forum. Haidut posts at http://haidut.me/ and the content is automatically copied on this site. This particular post is at http://haidut.me/?p=2714 There are no comments there.
From reading his post, it indicates that it is also posted at twitter, facebook and linkedin. If you post a reply here, Haidut may not answer but others will. It takes a critical mass of users and their comments to keep this forum lively.
