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Medical data is for informational purposes only. You should always consult your family physician, or one of our referral physicians prior to treatment.

Stephan Cooter, Ph.D.

The Trees of Death

Deadly Alkali salts in Pesticides

by Stephan Cooter, Ph.D.

The synthetically created salts used in pesticides, the organo-

phosphates, have a devastating effect on one of a bug’s essential

neurotransmitters. To a bug, a pesticide is a kind of nerve gas.

Pesticides paralyze and kill by shutting down the neurotransmitter

acetylcholine. But pesticides may be doing much of the same thing

to the much larger humans who ingest remnants of the pesticides on

food when small amounts slowly accumulate to such an extent that

they interfere with a much bigger bodily need for exactly the same

neurotransmitter.

The National Research Council, funded by the food industry to

conduct its research, has tried to convince us, though, that pesticides

are no more harmful than the natural pesticides that plants them-

selves have developed to discourage bugs from nibbling on them. In

“In Cholinesterase Inhibitors in Food

,” the NRC found the same

kind of anticholinergic chemicals that synthetic pesticides have. The

Nightshade family, tobacco, potatoes, tomatoes, green peppers, and

eggplant, all contain similar alkaloid chemicals that interfere with

choline-acetylcholine enzymes.

Tomatoes contain the anticholinesterase, tomatine. But most of

it is found in the leaves of the plant, not the fruit. George Ohsawa,

Macrobiotics

, felt though that the tomato’s fruit was the original

and literal deadly “forbidden fruit” or the forbidden apple, and knew

that it was referred to as the “death apple,” the pome da mort. Even

though Robert Graves has pointed out that pome da mort, was a

mishearing or misreading of pomme d’amour, the apple of love

rather than the apple of death, maybe Ohsawa was on to something

and it was Graves who got it wrong.

Perhaps it was the other way around, and death-apple came to

be known as love-apple in the same way the ancients hid many

things in sound riddles and ironies.

To Ohsawa, the tomato was responsible for the decline and fall

of the Spanish Empire. Both took place after the tomato became an

habitual part of the general population’s diet by 1560.

Originating from Peru, the tomato may have had as much to do

with the disappearance of the Aztecs as the Spanish Conquistadors.

Most nutritional counselors say that tomatoes are one of the

most nutritionally rich foods that a person can eat in terms of vita-

mins and minerals. But an occasional tomato may be entirely differ-

ent than a diet that uses tomato sauce, tomatoes, ketchup, salsa, and

tomato paste as daily fare. A little tomatine may be stimulating; a lot

may be deadly. Prior to the 18th century in the United States, no one

on the North American continent would touch a tomato because it

was generally believed to be poisonous.

The green parts on potatoes are known to be poisonous in the

same way tomatoes may be, containing an almost identical chemical,

called solanine, an alkaloid, or poisonous salt. Too many green

potatoes, green sprouts, or green eyes can literally kill in the same

way an overdose of alkaloid nicotine can. A little may be stimulating;

a lot is paralyzing. Although Dr. Jonathan Wright didn’t know the

mechanism, he did know as others have discovered that the entire

Nightshade family triggers arthritis in many people. [See "Foods

Found to Cause Pain, Swelling and Stiffness, http://www.

arthritistrust.org.] When an occasional eating of the Nightshade fam-

ily changes into a regular staple in the diet, we may be setting our-

selves up for all kinds of trouble.

The mechanism is now known to be solanine-tomatine interfer-

ence with the body’s production of acetylcholine in the same way it

does with insects. Solanine-tomatine is a Nightshade’s pesticide. It

discourages insects; it also shuts down the signal to lubricate our

joints.

Acetylcholine in the human body requires two enzymes to work

properly, choline transferase and acetylcholinesterase. The alkaloid

solanine-tomatine interferes with these enzymes. The result is that

acetylcholine production declines, and acetylcholine is the communi-

cation chemical that turns on the joints’ lubrication needs. Tobacco,

eggplants, green peppers, and white clover all do the same thing to

many. White clover gives cattle the bloat. But many bugs and higher

organisms have learned to tolerate anticholinesterase and are appar-

ently unaffected by the chemicals, or eat them in such small or occa-

sional quantities that no problems develop. But increasing quanti-

ties and long-term accumulation may eventually trigger problems in

sensitive individuals.

For sensitive people, the habitual combination of the Night-

shade family in the diet with small remnants of pesticides may result

in allergic reactions mimicking many diseases and emotional disor-

ders. It’s not only arthritis that can result, but even Parkinson’s and

Alzheimer’s like symptoms.

An entire class of neuroleptic drugs called anticholinergics work

in the same ways that pesticides and the Nightshade family work.

Atropine, an anesthetic used before surgery, was extracted from the

Nightshade family. Antihistamines, Parkinsonianism treatments, ulcer

treatments, and neuroleptic drugs are usually anticholinergic: they

shut down signals that create excessive secretions in the mouth, in

the stomach, in the joints, in the brain, and in the nervous system.

Anticholinergics shut down the production of acetylcholine. Acetyl-

choline is a stimulating neurotransmitter that turns the brain on, the

saliva on, the bronchial secretions on, intestinal secretions on, the

muscles on, and the lubricating chemicals for joints.

For restless movements and tremors in Parkinson’s disease,

anticholinergic drugs are helpful for that one symptom. They shut

down the signal that causes the tremor. But at the same time un-

From Supplement to The Art of Getting Well Cooter's Com-

ments: Sunshine Deficiency Diseases (Sunshine and Health);

Deadly Alkaloids in Pesticides; Sodium Fluoride: The Obedi-

Jack M.Blount Foundation for Eradication of Rheumatoid Disease

AKA The Arthritis Trust of America

7376 Walker Road, Fairview,

Tn 37062.