This piece is the first part of Stones in the Body: More Frightening Than Cancer (Yoon Jong-won). The body, figures, and citations follow the manuscript as written.
Now we enter the first region of that map, the world of the Calcium Code Evolutionary Cycle theory and the Cosmic Integration theory.
But are you not curious why we must widen our view from the cell all the way to the cosmos? Because once you understand the natural principle that the cell, the individual that is the human being, the planet that is the Earth, the star that is the Sun, and the cosmos are in the end pierced through in a straight line by a single thread called calcium, the birth, aging, illness, and death of the human being, and above all the beginning and the course of aging and chronic disease, are read far more easily and clearly upon that flow as well.
Your body holds about 1kg of calcium. Of that, 99% exists in the bones and teeth, and the remaining 1% exists in the blood and cells. Yet if this very 1% were gone, the heart would stop, the muscles would be paralyzed, and the brain would halt so that you could not live even a single second, a very solid fact that medicine has confirmed.
So where did this calcium come from? Very long ago, before the solar system was even born, some enormous star exploded as a supernova. The calcium atoms made by nuclear fusion inside that star scattered into cosmic space, that dust gathered and became the Earth, and life was born in the Earth's sea and, after repeated evolution, became you who are now reading this text.
In the end, the calcium in your body is the inheritance left behind by a star that died long ago.
This is not a poetic metaphor but a scientific fact. And this fact raises one fundamental question. Among the countless elements such as sodium, potassium, and magnesium, why was calcium alone chosen as the core signal of life?
To answer this question we must expand our view beyond the microcosm that is the cell to the Earth and then the cosmos, and as we follow that journey we come face to face with one astonishing fact, namely that the birth, aging, illness, and death of the cell and the birth, aging, illness, and death of the star repeat a resembling pattern as if a fractal and move in the same rhythm.
Worldview and Execution Map: Going Over It Once More
Let us look again, from a different angle, at the hierarchical structure that we organized into a table in the previous chapter. Because understanding why two levels are needed, understanding that reason, is important for reading this chapter.
The Calcium Code Evolutionary Cycle theory and the Cosmic Integration theory answer the 'big questions.' What is life? Why is it born and why does it die? Where does it go when it dies? These questions are the ones that philosophers have thrown out for thousands of years.
Yet astonishingly, if you trace the single element calcium, you can answer them scientifically. The cycle in which calcium made in the stars passes through life and returns once more to the cosmos, that is the essence of life.
By contrast, DIAH-7M answers the 'small questions.' Why does the knee hurt? Why does blood pressure rise? Why do the eyes grow dim? These questions are the ones that patients throw out every day in the hospital. DIAH-7M shows that all of these symptoms lie upon the movement pathway of calcium. It is a chain reaction that arises as the calcium that has escaped from the bones piles up in the blood vessels and those blood vessels become blocked.
Let me change the metaphor. The worldview is the meteorology that explains 'why it rains.' It is the principle that the sun warms the sea, water vapor rises, becomes clouds, and turns to rain. The calcium execution map is the weather forecast that tells you 'shall I take an umbrella today.' If you do not know the principle you cannot trust the forecast, and if there is no forecast the principle is empty. Both are needed.
[Table 5-0] The Hierarchy of the Theory and the Core Questions
| Category | Theory Name | Core Question | Domain of Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upper (Worldview) | Calcium Code Evolutionary Cycle theory & Cosmic Integration theory | Why calcium? Where does life come from and where does it go? | Cosmos → Earth → Life → Return (the whole cycle of life) |
| Lower (Execution Map) | DIAH-7M Pathway System | How do we fall ill? How can we slow it down? | Decline period → Death period (aging and disease) |
What This Chapter Covers
The Calcium Code Evolutionary Cycle theory that this chapter will treat is the scientific answer to 'how does life work (How)?' If Darwin's theory of evolution explains the change of life and the genome map shows the blueprint of life, the Calcium Code theory reveals that the 'execution code' which realizes that blueprint into actual life phenomena is calcium.
The Calcium Cosmic Integration theory is the philosophical insight into 'where does life come from and where does it go (Where & Why)?' It interprets the birth and death of life not as a simple biological event but within the macroscopic order that is the cycle of cosmic matter. It is the majestic cycle in which calcium made in the stars passes through life and returns once more to the cosmos.
When these two theories are joined, the microcosm that is the cell and the macrocosm that is the cosmos are connected through the single medium that is 'calcium,' the boundary between medicine and natural science collapses, and life and the cosmos are integrated by a single principle.
The Relationship with DIAH-7M: Map and Navigation
The DIAH-7M Pathway System that the later chapters will treat is a subsystem of this immense worldview. Concentrating on the decline period and the death period out of the whole cycle of life (birth → growth → reproduction → decline → death → return), it clarifies the concrete pathway by which we grow old and fall ill and reach death.
Let me give one more metaphor. If the Calcium Code Evolutionary Cycle theory is the whole route map from Seoul to Busan, DIAH-7M is the navigation that tells you 'enter the Daejeon IC 3km after your current position.'
Without the whole route map you cannot know whether the direction you are now going is right, and without the navigation you cannot know where to exit right now.
In this chapter we will complete the whole route map, and in the later chapters we will turn on the navigation. It is the order of first understanding the big picture and then examining in detail the road we must actually walk.
The Beginning of the Journey
Now we begin the journey from the cell to the cosmos. Starting from the cell, the smallest world, and widening our view to the human being, to the Earth, and then to the stars and the cosmos, we will confirm what role calcium plays at each stage and how every stage follows the same pattern.
The names of that pattern are precisely 'cycle' and 'evolution.'
Cycle and Evolution: Two Keys
The size of a single cell is 0.01mm, and it cannot be seen without a microscope. By contrast, according to NASA the age of the cosmos is about 13.8 billion years. The difference in scale between these two, the cell and the cosmos, surpasses imagination.
But what if these two work by the same principle?
In the 1970s the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot proposed the concept of the 'fractal.' If you look closely at a single tree branch, a small branch comes out of a large branch and an even smaller branch stretches out of the small branch, and that shape resembles the whole tree.
The coastline is likewise, the shape of a 1km stretch of coastline resembles the shape of a 100km stretch of coastline. Mandelbrot called this 'self-similarity.' It means that the small part resembles the whole.
If the birth, aging, illness, and death of the cell resembles the birth, aging, illness, and death of the cosmos, this is not coincidence but the design of nature.
This chapter presents two keys.
The first key is 'cycle.' The cell, the person, the Earth, and the star are born, grow, reproduce, grow old, and die. But death is not the end. They return once more to material and become the foundation of a new birth. From birth to return, the wheel of six stages turns without cease.
The second key is 'evolution.' It is the directionality of developing from the simple to the complex. Just after the Big Bang there were only hydrogen atoms in the cosmos, but now a human being made of 37 trillion cells discusses philosophy. Every being develops in the same direction and then returns once more to simple material.
And at every stage of this cycle and evolution calcium plays the core role. In the cell, in the human being, in the Earth, and in the star.
The Reason for Treating the Two Theories Together
The Calcium Code Evolutionary Cycle theory treats the 'how.' How calcium makes life work, it clarifies the execution principle of the microcosm from the cell to the human being. By contrast, the Calcium Cosmic Integration theory treats the 'where from' and the 'where to.' Where that calcium came from and where it goes, it clarifies the origin and return of the macrocosm from the Earth to the cosmos.
With only the Calcium Code theory you understand that 'calcium is important in the cell' but the question 'so what?' remains, and with only the Cosmic Integration theory you understand that 'calcium was made in the stars' but the question 'what does that have to do with my body?' remains. Only when the two are joined does it at last become a complete picture. When the 'working principle' of the microscopic and the 'reason for existence' of the macroscopic are connected into one, calcium is elevated beyond a simple nutrient to a medium that links the cosmos and life.
The Cycle and Evolution of the Cell
In 1991 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to two German scientists, Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann. What they researched for 20 years was a very small hole not even visible to the eye, the ion channel bored into the cell membrane.
This hole is so small that only a few atoms can barely pass through it, but the time it takes for a calcium ion to go in and out is merely one thousandth of a second. Since the time to blink an eye is 0.3 seconds, it can open and close as many as 300 times in the span of a single blink.
This momentary movement makes the heart beat, contracts the muscles, and makes the brain's thinking possible. Without the calcium movement of the brief instant of one thousandth of a second the heart would stop, you could not move even a single finger, and you could not have a single thought. Calcium is, in short, the language by which cells communicate.
The Switch of Life: The Calcium Spark
The cell too is born and dies. Let us look at the moment of birth. A sperm swims toward the egg. Of hundreds of millions of sperm only a single one reaches the egg, and at the moment the sperm pierces the shell of the egg and enters, a calcium wave arises within the egg.
Just as ripples spread out when a stone is thrown into a calm pond, it is the phenomenon in which the calcium concentration surges like a wave within the egg, and this is called the 'calcium spark.'
Without this calcium spark cell division does not begin. Even though the sperm and egg have met, life does not begin. Only when the calcium wave arises does the fertilized egg split into two, into four, and in the end become a human being made of 37 trillion cells. Calcium is the switch that turns life on.
The Bell in a Quiet Room
The calcium concentration inside the cell, compared with outside the cell, is ten thousand times lower. The cell spends enormous energy to send calcium out and to keep the inside at an extremely low concentration.
Why does it maintain a low concentration with such effort? You need only think of a quiet room. In a noisy market you cannot hear well even if someone calls you, but in a quiet library even a small whisper is heard clearly. The cell is likewise, only by keeping the inside of the cell 'quiet' does it become a 'clear signal' when calcium comes in.
When the moment that a signal is needed comes, the ion channel opens and calcium pours in. It is a bell ringing in a quiet room. When the signal ends the pump operates and sends the calcium back out and makes the room quiet once more.
This repetition happens at every moment in 37 trillion cells, and at this very moment too trillions of calcium signals are passing back and forth in your body.
The Power Plant of the Cell: Mitochondria and Calcium
Inside the cell there exist hundreds to thousands of small power plants called 'mitochondria,' which ceaselessly produce ATP, the energy currency of life.
The very reason we breathe and take in oxygen is that the mitochondria use oxygen to make ATP. Without ATP the muscles do not move, the brain cannot think, and the heart does not beat.
The mitochondria too are regulated by calcium. When a suitable amount of calcium enters the mitochondria, ATP production is promoted and the power plant runs harder.
But when too much calcium enters, the power plant is overloaded, calcium phosphate crystals form inside the mitochondria, and it hardens like calcification. Calcium is both the fuel and the poison of the power plant. In moderation it raises energy, in excess it makes the power plant stop.
The Vault of the Cell: The Endoplasmic Reticulum Calcium Store
Inside the cell there is also a vault called the endoplasmic reticulum (ER, Endoplasmic Reticulum). A net-like membrane structure fills the inside of the cell, and calcium is stored within it. The calcium outside the cell is the 'external bank,' and the calcium of the endoplasmic reticulum is the 'internal vault,' and when a signal is needed calcium is drawn from the two places and used.
The way to draw from the external bank is to open the ion channel, and the way to draw from the internal vault is to use a key called IP3. When a hormone touches the cell surface IP3 is made, and this key opens the endoplasmic reticulum vault so that calcium pours out.
The calcium drawn from the vault must be put back into the vault. A pump called SERCA consumes ATP and fills the calcium back into the vault.
What happens if the vault becomes empty? The cell is stressed. It is called endoplasmic reticulum stress. If this stress persists the cell chooses death itself. It is apoptosis. Calcium is the emergency money of the cell. When the vault is empty the cell goes bankrupt.
The Calcium Sensor: Calmodulin
How does the cell sense the calcium concentration? There is a protein called calmodulin. The meaning of the name is 'calcium modulating protein.'
Calmodulin is shaped like a dumbbell. At each end there is a site where calcium binds. When calcium binds the shape changes. When the shape changes it activates another protein. The switch is turned on.
The proteins that a single calmodulin activates are dozens of kinds. Muscle contraction, nerve transmission, cell division, gene expression. Calmodulin is involved in almost every important cell function.
If calcium is the signal, calmodulin is the interpreter that decodes that signal. It translates the change in calcium concentration into a concrete cell response.
Here calmodulin is the 'interpreter of calcium.' It changes the calcium signal into a language that the cell can understand.
The ATP Pump: The Price of Maintaining Life
For the cell to keep the calcium concentration low, enormous energy is needed. Do you know how much energy it takes?
A considerable portion of the ATP that the human body makes is used to run the ion pumps. The sodium-potassium pump and the calcium pump run without rest. They push the ions out and pull them in. This is the price of being alive.
Beyond the heart beating, the brain thinking, and the muscles moving, merely keeping the inside of the cell 'quiet' takes this much energy.
Why was it designed so inefficiently? It is not inefficiency. Only when this 'gradient' exists can a signal be sent. Just as water flows only when there is a difference in height between the mountain top and the valley, a signal flows only when there is a difference in calcium concentration inside and outside the cell.
Being alive is ceaselessly spending energy to maintain imbalance. When you die the pump stops. The gradient vanishes. It becomes a state of equilibrium. Speaking physically, death is entropy becoming maximal.
Here ATP is the 'currency of life.' To maintain the calcium gradient you must pay ceaselessly.
Membrane Potential: The Electricity That Calcium Makes
There is a voltage difference across the cell membrane. It is roughly -70 millivolts. The inside of the cell is more negatively charged than the outside. This is called the membrane potential.
Why is this voltage difference important? Think of the nerve cell. What happens when a nerve transmits a signal? The voltage changes. It changes sharply from -70 millivolts to +30 millivolts. This is called the action potential.
When the action potential occurs the ion channels open. Sodium enters first, potassium goes out, and calcium enters. This calcium influx releases neurotransmitters at the nerve terminal. The signal is transmitted to the next nerve cell.
You are now reading these letters. A signal is being transmitted from the eyes to the brain. You are understanding the meaning of the letters. In all of this process billions of nerve cells are raising action potentials, calcium is flowing in, and neurotransmitters are being released.
To think is, in short, for calcium to move. Calcium is the substance of thought.
The Aging and Death of the Cell: The Microscopic Substance of DIAH-7M
But the cell too grows old. What happens when it grows old?
First, the pumps break down. The efficiency of the PMCA pump that sends calcium out and the SERCA pump that returns it to the endoplasmic reticulum falls. The gene expression that makes the pumps decreases, and the pumps that are made also suffer oxidative damage.
Second, the mitochondria age. When the power plant grows old ATP production decreases. When ATP decreases there is not enough energy to run the pumps. A vicious cycle begins.
Third, the endoplasmic reticulum vault begins to leak. The vault door grows loose and calcium leaks out little by little. The rate of leaking out becomes faster than the rate of filling calcium into the vault.
What is the result? Calcium slowly piles up inside the cell. Noise piles up more and more in a room that ought to be quiet. Later, even when the bell rings, it is buried in the other noise and cannot be heard. The signal system collapses.
Calcium Overload: The Trigger of Cell Death
What happens when calcium is overloaded inside the cell? The team of Dr. Sten Orrenius of Sweden clarified this process in detail.
When calcium flows excessively into the mitochondria, the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP) opens. When this pore opens the mitochondria swell up and burst. The power plant explodes.
When the mitochondria burst a substance called cytochrome c pours out into the cytoplasm. This is the signal flare of cell death. A degrading enzyme called caspase is activated. The cell begins to break itself down.
At the same time calcium also activates an enzyme called calpain. Calpain cuts the cytoskeleton. The framework of the cell collapses. The cell shrivels round and shrinks.
This is 7M at the cell level. Occlusion (blockage) is the stoppage of mitochondrial function. Hardening (stiffening) is calcium deposition. Collapse (falling apart) is the breakdown of the cytoskeleton. DIAH-7M does not happen only in the macrocosm. The same pattern happens in each and every cell of the microcosm.
Here calcium overload is the 'trigger of the microscopic 7M.' It is the starting point of the process of blocking, hardening, and collapsing at the cell level.
Why the Pumps Break Down When We Grow Old
Let me ask a fundamental question. Why do the calcium pumps break down when we grow old?
First, oxidative stress. When the mitochondria make ATP, reactive oxygen species arise as a byproduct. When young the antioxidant system deals with this. But when age advances the antioxidant capacity falls. Reactive oxygen species pile up, and the pump proteins suffer oxidative damage.
Second, the change of the membrane. The cell membrane is made of lipids. When age advances the fluidity of the membrane falls. It grows stiff. For the pump to work properly the membrane must be flexible. When the membrane hardens the pump efficiency falls.
Third, the change of gene expression. When aging occurs the expression of the genes that make the pumps decreases. Production of new pumps decreases, and old pumps are not replaced.
Fourth, chronic inflammation. When age advances a chronic low-grade inflammation arises in the body. It is called inflammaging (Inflammaging). Inflammatory substances disturb calcium homeostasis.
These four are precisely DIAH. D (Deficiency) is the deficiency of antioxidant substances. I (Inflammation) is inflammaging. A (Acidosis) is oxidative stress. H (Hypoxia) is the impairment of oxygen utilization due to the decline of mitochondrial function.
DIAH does not work only in the macrocosm. It works the same way inside the cells of the microcosm as well. The DIAH inside the cell expands into the DIAH outside the cell. The failure of calcium regulation at the cell level appears as chronic disease at the level of the human body.
DIAH-7M begins inside the cell. The calcium code of the microcosm is the seed of the chronic disease of the macrocosm.
The Return of the Cell: From Death to Rebirth
What becomes of a dead cell?
When a cell dies it sends an 'eat me (Eat me)' signal. A lipid called phosphatidylserine is exposed to the outside of the cell membrane. This is the signal.
A macrophage senses this signal. It moves toward the dead cell. When it arrives it swallows the dead cell whole. A digestive organelle called the lysosome breaks down the cell. Proteins are split into amino acids. Lipids are split into fatty acids. The calcium that formed the framework is released in ionic form. These materials are absorbed into the body fluid.
Where do the released amino acids and calcium go? Another cell takes them. They become the material for making new proteins. They become the signaling substance of a new cell.
The calcium of the dead cell becomes the life signal of a new cell. From birth to return, from return to birth once more. The cell too cycles. Calcium is a double-edged sword. In moderation a signal, in excess a poison. And after death it becomes the material of life once more.
The Cycle of the Cell's Birth, Aging, Illness, and Death [Table 2-1] The Matching of the Cell's Birth, Aging, Illness, and Death with the Calcium Code
| Stage | Category | Cell (Micro) | The Role of Calcium (Execution Code) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Birth | Cell division | Just as with the fertilized egg, division begins only when a calcium wave enters the cell (switch ON) |
| 2 | Growth | Cell maturation | Hardens the cytoskeleton (Cytoskeleton) and grows it to the size to perform its function |
| 3 | Reproduction | Cell replication | Replicates and divides DNA to make the next cell with the same function |
| 4 | Decline | Function decline | [Dual blockade stage] Calcium residue piles up inside the cell (calcification), and the supply route is blocked so it begins to starve |
| 5 | Death | Cell necrosis | [7M expression] In the end the cell membrane bursts (Necrosis) or hardens and stops functioning |
| 6 | Return | Breakdown and absorption | The dead cell is broken down by macrophages and the like, split into amino acids, calcium, and so on, and returns to the body fluid |
Look at the table. The cell too is born (division), grows (maturation), reproduces (replication), grows old (function decline), dies (necrosis), and returns to material (breakdown). And at every one of these stages calcium turns the switch on and off. The cell is a miniature of the cosmos.
The Cycle and Evolution of the Human Being
1883, London, England. A physician named Sydney Ringer discovered a strange phenomenon in the laboratory.
He was doing an experiment of taking out a frog's heart and soaking it in various solutions. When he soaked it in pure saline the heart stopped.
It means that sodium alone will not do. But when he soaked it in tap water the heart kept beating. What is it that is in tap water and not in saline?
Dr. Ringer analyzed the tap water. The answer was calcium. A trace amount of calcium was dissolved in the tap water. This small amount of calcium was the key that made the heart beat.
The 'Ringer's injection solution' still used in hospitals today took its name from this discovery. Sodium, potassium, and calcium are mixed in appropriate proportions. Dr. Ringer's discovery of 140 years ago is still saving the lives of millions of people today.
Calcium is the key of life. This key that Ringer discovered 140 years ago became the foundation of modern medicine.