Book Excerpt: MMM Theory: A New Paradigm in Medicine


Chris D. Meletis, ND, and Howard M. Simon

The Inflammation Treatment Book: Revealing the Root Cause of Disease, Its Prevention & Treatment

The following article is the first chapter in the new book MMM THEORY: A New Paradigm in Medicine: The Inflammation Treatment Book: Revealing the Root Cause of Disease, Its Prevention & Treatment. Microbial Mucosal Milieu (MMM) Theory presents a new paradigm in human physiology and medicine. MMM theory posits that diseases categorized as “auto-immune” disease and diseases where inflammation is a symptom are in fact not diseases at all. We suggest that all these diseases reflect a breach in the protective barriers in the body which allow environmental microcontaminants to enter and circulate in the human body. The body then launches an attack on these foreign molecules, which are invisible to humans using current technology. Current medical paradigm diagnoses the body’s inflammatory response as a disease rather than the body’s natural response to microcontaminants.

In this book you will learn what the microbial mucosal milieu is, how it affects you, how to prevent symptoms, and stay healthy, and a new understanding of how to help treat diseases.

Chapter 1. MMM Theory – Overview of the New Medical Paradigm

Introduction to MMM Theory
This book and the Microbial Mucosal Milieu theory result from my (Howard Simon) many years of suffering from Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Revelations, research, personal experimentation, and limited case studies led me to conceptualize an alternative understanding of my “disease” and many other conditions also categorized as “autoimmune disease.”

Here are a few definitions and concepts to help you understand our perspective or paradigm. It is likely different than what you have ever heard before but hopefully will explain concepts that you have wondered about for a long time.

The Microbial Mucosal Milieu—MMM for short—is an entity that exists throughout your entire body but is most visible and studied where it resides on the surface of your gastrointestinal tract – your mouth, throat, stomach, small intestines, bowel, and anus.

We have coined the new term Microbial Mucosal Milieu. MMM represents more than the three words used separately, just like saltwater may define an ecosystem, far beyond the simple definition of salt dissolved in water. The goal of this book is to explain MMM Theory, and yet, we have already identified additional chapters for book two.

The MMM exists in and around every organ, system, and possibly every cell and organelle in the human or animal body. There is no barrier in the body, from the oral to the blood-brain barrier, to the lymph system, to individual cellular barriers that are not protected and served by the MMM.

There are about 10 times as many microbes as human cells in the human body. Thus, the MMM contains nearly 3.3 million genes compared to about 23,000 identified in the human body.

Current paradigms in medicine and medical tools do not easily enable identification of the MMM on other than external surfaces of the body, nor do they allow doctors to view functioning of the MMM.

The MMM regulates everything (nutrients, toxins, contaminants, waste) that enters the body and all organs, systems, and cells. It simultaneously regulates everything (cellular waste, toxins, contaminants) that is excreted by the body.

Imagine if your hot and cold water, sewage, electricity, heating, and cooling were all running through the same pipe in your house. What an immensely sophisticated adaptive system it would take to manage these flows simultaneously through the same pipe. I’m thinking of these as an analogy for your vascular, lymph, sinus, and gastrointestinal systems when I ask you to imagine beyond current dogma. Each of these body systems transport both nutrients and waste simultaneously through the same “pipe.”

We are just in our infancy of understanding how our body systems transport, and our microbiome propagates beneficial bacteria throughout our entire body in a complex fashion in yet-to-be understood pathways.

The accelerated growth of EMFs (electromagnetic field) emissions confounds our understanding of the MMM and its impact on health. EMFs could harm bacteria directly with heat or they could interfere with cellular, bacterial, and interspecies communications in ways not yet known. This will be discussed in later chapters.

Many diseases, such as autoimmune diseases, and diseases that have inflammation as a symptom are the body’s response to microcontaminants in the organelle, cell, organ, or system. In the case of autoimmune diseases, we will show that the body is attacking the microcontaminants that have entered the organ or system, not attacking the body itself. So, we believe the term autoimmune is a misinterpretation of the physiology of the body’s response. Contaminants are not diseases. However, our medical tools identify the collateral damage and interpret autoimmune diseases as the body attacking itself rather than attacking the microcontaminants that are “hidden” there.

My interpretation of autoimmune disease started with a realization of what was occurring in my gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and expanded as I discovered how similar other organs and systems in the body function. For many, this is an easy progression to understand, and thus we present the gastrointestinal tract as a focus, but it is only the beginning of our exploration of how our MMM works synergistically with the body. For the GIT offers the most visible example of the MMM at work or in a dysfunctional state using “modern” medical paradigm, tools and methods.

We have not yet decided if the body is the host or the superstructure for the MMM. This is perhaps an issue of the human ego – can we be anything other than the center of our own universe? Or put another way, who serves whom?

By regulating entry and exit throughout the body, the MMM has the ability to avoid, minimize, reduce, or stop the body’s attack on microcontaminants in systems and organs.

The MMM provides a coordinated response to the environment and all parts of the body. Science now identifies this as an undefined pathway of communication. MMM Theory says that is the MMM at work.

By regulating all pathways in the human body, the MMM has the potential to manage systemic body activities, leading to wellness and disease.

Aging, and diseases of aging, reflect episodic and long-term nutrient deficiency or depletion and accumulation of microcontaminants and waste in the body, and the growing body burden of that combination of factors according to Triage Theory developed by Professor Emeritus Bruce Ames, PhD. 15,16 Diseases of childhood represent an early susceptibility and accumulation of microcontaminants that the developing body is not strong enough to adapt to, and manifest as developmental diseases. The MMM plays a critical role in nutrient delivery, waste removal and microcontaminant accumulation in both childhood diseases and diseases of aging.

There are so many new discoveries being made of never-before-seen systems in the body. They all support MMM theory of health and aging. These include the glymphatic system, the vascular system in bones, and the bacterial milieu in a woman’s placenta. The placenta microbiome, identified about 10 years ago, changes the dogma that babies are sterile until birth.

Highlights of MMM Theory

We have several ways to share this new paradigm in medicine that I (Howard Simon) call MMM Theory. Our goal was to find a way for you to understand the limits of conventional thinking, opening your mind to a new paradigm.

Some people who read this book will be scientists and clinicians. Some will be health researchers, looking for new paths to explore, and some will be folks with a disease that just can’t be explained or fully treated with conventional medicine. These people see that modern medicine can treat their symptoms, and this is helpful, but they are frustrated that doctors don’t know the root cause of their problem, and therefore allopathic medicine’s goal is remission of symptoms, rather than cure.

The hypothesis and treatments are relatively simple, but so new and profound, that it takes some thought and convincing for even an open-minded person to buy into it.

Here were our options for presenting our hypothesis, the supporting research, and the effect on various diseases and conditions.

  1. Tell the story as a progression of the way the paradigm unfolded for me.
  2. Start at the end, being the disease and its treatment, and work backward into the theory.
  3. Present in-depth research and our alternative interpretation and conclusions that the research supports.
  4. Start with the most profound concepts and explore how they impact various diseases and treatments later in the book.
    We chose option 4.

Here is the briefest summary of what you will learn in this book.

The MMM exists throughout the body, in every organ, system, and cell in the body.
A healthy MMM protects your body from contaminants – both entering your body and entering any and every organ and system in your body.

The MMM consists of an evolving balance of beneficial and harmful bacteria, nutrients for the bacteria, and nutrients to enhance communication of the MMM with tissue, cells, and mitochondria in the body.

A contaminant is something that doesn’t belong in your body such as air and water pollution. But it can also be something that belongs somewhere else in your body, such as hydrochloric acid which only belongs in your stomach.

The MMM is both resilient and fragile and can be damaged by antibiotics, anti-microbials, such as alcohol, hydrocarbons, pesticides, herbicides, cleaning chemicals, chlorine, heavy metals, plastic chemicals, radiation – such as 5G, a poor diet, and more toxins.

Damage to the MMM will allow contaminants to enter your body and your organs. Genetic susceptibility and physical injury will allow these contaminants to accumulate in your weakest system. This is a primary cause of disease. Comorbidities are markers of MMM dysfunction.

Contaminants that enter a baby’s brain contribute to diseases of childhood development. Contaminants that accumulate over a lifetime may cause or at least contribute to diseases of aging. Contaminants that accumulate in your mitochondria cause a lack of energy, stamina, and healing power.

The easiest place to explore the MMM is in the gastrointestinal tract – mouth, intestines, bowel – and on the skin. Very limited, and often misleading, conclusions can be drawn from thinking that the MMM exists only in places we can see, even with the best medical tools.

Current medical tools do not show molecules within a cell, such as microcontaminants. Thus, science does not know they are there. But the MMM “sees” this and goes to work, sight unseen by humans, to protect the body from these contaminants.

Many diseases, including all diseases categorized as autoimmune disease, are not merely the body attacking itself. They reflect the body attacking contaminant-impacted areas. Like with a bee sting, the whole area becomes inflamed, not just the bee venom.

Speaking of inflammation, inflammation reflects the body’s natural response to microcontaminants and other processes. Many diseases with inflammation as a symptom are initiated or potentiated by microcontaminants in the body.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health and Science (NIH, NIEHS) says inflammation is associated with diseases such as the following:1
• Autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, colitis, and lupus
• Cardiovascular diseases like high blood pressure and heart disease
• Gastrointestinal disorders like inflammatory bowel disease
• Lung diseases like asthma
• Mental illnesses like depression
• Metabolic diseases like Type 2 diabetes
• Neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease
• Some types of cancer, like colon cancer

MMM Theory posits the cause, means of prevention, and adjunctive treatment of such diseases.

Microcontaminants lingering in the body and eliciting an immune response reflect mismanagement of the flow of nutrients and waste.

The MMM facilitates movement of nutrients and cellular waste to and from every cell in the body. This includes movement of the MMM itself. Approximately half of feces is bacteria that have given their lives in the cause of supporting your body.

The MMM circulates throughout the body and manages circulation in multiple systems – such as blood, lymph, and intracellular spaces. This is where we developed our tube analogy. Imagine that your home had one pipe like your gastrointestinal tract or lymph system. Inside that pipe in your home, all mixed together, are clean hot and cold water, electricity, natural or propane gas, and wastewater from your sinks, showers, and toilets. The MMM is so sophisticated that it can deliver and remove the appropriate inputs and outputs (nutrients and waste) which coexist in your blood, lymph, and sinuses, to the places where they are needed or excreted.

For example, it is understood that many vitamins are generally absorbed into blood circulation in the large intestine. Yet we also know that the large intestine ferments nutrients and accumulates waste which is passed as fecal matter. So how does the body differentiate between nutrients that are being drawn from bolus in your colon and fecal matter which will be expelled? This raises the question of what sanitary is, which will be discussed later in the book.

If the body cannot remove microcontaminants from your cells, it will try to isolate them. The most effective way to isolate them is by storing them in fat. You know what happens when you store excess fat in your body. Here is a primary reason.

These microcontaminants may come from an external source, such as herbicides in food, heavy metals in water, hydrocarbons in smog, trace pharmaceutical drugs, or plastics in all these sources.
Bacterial diversity, proper nourishment, dietary diversity, avoiding MMM poisons, and balance are key to a healthy MMM. Chapter 9 will describe how to maintain and restore a healthy MMM.

Cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, MD, believed that the root cause of heart disease is inflammation. We say the root cause of inflammation is the MMM not operating at its best. This infers that the root cause of heart disease is a dysfunctional MMM.

Gastroenterologists, when asked, cannot pinpoint the root cause of GI diseases such as IBS, IBD, UC, Crohn’s, etc. MMM theory posits that a weak MMM allows microcontaminants to damage the GI tract causing all these diseases.

Neurologists and researchers David Perlmutter, MD, and Aristo Vojdani, PhD, identify microcontaminants as a cause of brain and neurological diseases. MMM theory identifies a weakened MMM as the gatekeeper that allows these contaminants to cross the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB). Contaminants may also enter the neurological system through a specialized part of the lymph system, named the glymphatic system, which delivers nutrients and removes waste from the neurological system during sleep.

Or a weakened MMM does not properly facilitate passage of waste material, including senescent cells, out of the cell, brain, or neurological system. Imagine if you didn’t take out just one bag of garbage from your house monthly, but it let it accumulate for years. In the body, this leads to diseases of aging.

Highlights

We have now posited the cause of inflammation. We will establish the cause of acute and chronic diseases and how to prevent the causes of inflammation. MMM Theory will thus show how to prevent and treat acute and chronic diseases that present as inflammatory diseases by supporting the MMM throughout the body.

Many conventional medical treatments that reduce symptoms may continue to be used in conjunction with resolving the underlying cause of inflammation and “disease.” One just needs to be aware when they are treating the body’s protective mechanisms.

Form, Fit, and Function of the Microbial Mucosal Milieu

The topic of a healthy mucosal milieu—in my case, the gastrointestinal tract—has been the inspiration for my quest to pull together the scientific literature to support my health and wellness journey. You can use my knowledge to further your own quest for vibrant, good health.

As other medical conditions revealed their similarities to me during my research, and considering how many other individuals are experiencing the ravages of a disordered GI tract or a global disharmonious microbial mucosal milieu, I have expanded my hypothesis to all organs, systems, and many diseases.

There is no argument that our body constantly speaks to us, with signs and symptoms of happiness, neutrality, or disharmony. There is a saying that captures the likelihood of our developing any number of health conditions: “Genetics predisposes, yet diet and lifestyle ultimately manifests.” Yes, for scientists with a genetic focus there are instances where a condition is passed down from a parent to a child, known as autosomal dominant conditions. Yet, it can be argued that diet and lifestyle also impact these types of genetic disorders.

What Is Epigenetics?

Epigenetics refers to the way lifestyle factors, behavior, and the environment impact the function of your genes. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic alterations can be reversed. Epigenetic changes don’t alter your DNA sequence, but they can influence how your body reads your DNA. They act like a switch that can turn genes on and off. Epigenetic changes can be passed on from mother to child and even to grandchildren.

What is the Microbial Mucosal Milieu?

The microbial mucosal milieu (MMM) is an entity that is located throughout the body and is not limited to any particular location in the body. The microbial mucosal milieu can be viewed as a continuously vacillating system that shifts with ongoing adaptation to maintain health-promoting homeostasis for both itself and the human body. Imagine for a moment the peak of a sand dune amid an expansive desert. The peak of that dune will have an ever-changing GPS location, just as homeostasis is always adapting and ever-changing.

Indeed, the MMM is characterized by localized microbial diversity, the surrounding microbiome, and genetics of each host. These characteristics manifest and vary throughout the entire body, not merely the gastrointestinal tract. Microbial diversity refers to the different kinds of bacteria you have in your body. The microbiome is the collection of good and bad bacteria, viruses, and fungi that live in your body. You can think of the MMM as a community or system. The vitality and robustness of the MMM depends upon the organism’s health, nuclear genetics, mitochondrial function, food/nutrient supply or diet, physiological and psychological stresses, toxic burden, microbial exposure, and other epigenetic factors that we will explore in the chapters to come.

One of my favorite analogies to the concept of an MMM are the Star Trek TV shows and movies. Gene Roddenberry had great foresight, or good fortune of having great writers, imagining the human MMM, and showing how it works on Star Trek. Recall many scenes where Scotty says “Capt’n, (deflector) shields are up.” And Captain Kirk orders the crew to fire phasers and photon torpedos! The shields act as an intelligent, semi-permeable membrane that protects the starship Enterprise, while allowing weapons to fire through them. On the other hand, the shields had to be manipulated or adapted to allow people to be transported bidirectionally through them.

Over time, the MMM fluctuates on a scale from thriving to surviving to disease (cellular disharmony).

The MMM is more than the sum of its components – the microbiota, microbiome, mucosa, or metabolome (the metabolites produced by cells during metabolism). The MMM is the composite entity that serves as the aggregate modulator of whole-body health.

MMM Intelligence

The adaptive intelligence of the MMM cannot be well comprehended or underestimated.

Ray Bradbury in his short story “Here There Be Tygers,” first published in 1951, makes a great case for appreciating intelligence and emotions in objects that we do not normally attribute intelligence to. The story presents a rocket expedition seeking to mine resources for Earth, lured to a planet to see whether its natural resources can be harvested for the human race. The explorers discover a paradise which seems to provide for them whatever they desire even as they think of it. One crew member wants to mine the planet for all that they can gain. The other crew members realize that the planet is alive, has female characteristics, and only wants the male explorers to stay and enjoy the love that the planet bestows on them. One explorer stays and the others leave and report the planet as hostile, so as to protect its hidden beauty and expressions of love.

The MMM regulates everything (nutrients, toxins, contaminants, waste) that enters the body and individually enters and leaves all organs, systems, and cells in the body. It simultaneously regulates everything (cellular waste, toxins, contaminants) that are excreted by the body.

Just as I asked you to imagine if your hot and cold water, your sewage, electricity, heating and cooling were all running through the same pipe in your house, I ask you to imagine two of the three main flows – your lymph and gastrointestinal systems – throughout your body in the same way. What an immensely sophisticated/intelligent adaptive system it would take to manage these flows simultaneously through the same pipe.

Specifically, both your gastrointestinal tract and your lymph systems carry nourishment (water and nutrients), cellular waste, oxygen and carbon dioxide essentially in the same tube. There is no point of demarcation where the tube stops carrying nutrients and starts carrying waste. We will delve into this further when we ask the questions: What is sanitary? How are nutrients and waste selectively removed from the flows? What causes mismanagement of the flows? What is the effect of mismanagement of the flows? Chapter 7: Circulation and Lymphatics will provide discussion and references.

Building a Healthy Ecology for a Thriving MMM

MMM Theory will show that it does matter what building blocks we provide our body and the MMM. There is a consequence and truth to the adage “We are what we eat from our head to our feet.” But wait, there is more to the story. Are we merely feeding ourselves? The answer is a resounding no!

The next time you place a delicious morsel in your mouth, you are fueling the cells of your body and the energy production to sustain life. You are also feeding the microbial community that lives throughout your body but is usually only thought of as populating your GI tract. This microbial community ultimately impacts all organs and tissues of your body. The integrity of the mucosal lining of your GI tract that serves as the gut homeland security system will, directly and indirectly, be impacted by that morsel of food. There will be a ripple effect as it nurtures your GI microbes so they can properly sustain a healthy microbiome or alter essential short-chain fatty acids such as butyrate.

No Longer in Kansas

Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz proclaimed, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

We now live in a world of toxins, electromagnetic fields (EMFs), pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified foods, microwave-modified foods, processed food galore, concentrated human pollutants, heavy metals, plastics, xenoestrogens (natural or synthetic compounds that mirror the effects of estrogen produced in the body or that trigger estrogen production), and countless medications—whether prescribed or in your water supply—that alter the microbial and mucosal health of the body. Chapter 2: You Are Being Poisoned will elucidate this concept.

Over 70 percent of the “food products” sold in the local supermarket did not exist a generation ago. Thus, we nourish current and future generations with untested and questionable building materials. Potentially equally as important is that we are feeding the microbiota that has co-existed with humanity over the generations with toxins and “foodstuffs.” This ultimately impacts the microbiota’s ability to participate optimally in the symbiotic relationship with us, the host. Finally, how we fuel and treat our bodies affects their ecology and ability to thrive, with a well-noted ripple effect as documented in the medical literature.

Though we can’t make the earth as pristine as it once was, we can take proactive steps to minimize our total burden of toxins and ongoing exposures that we will discuss in future chapters.

Supporting Diversity

Each item that passes our lips and travels through our GI tract adds to or subtracts from our overall health savings account. There is a reason that scientists currently believe that upwards of 80 percent of the immune system resides in the GI tract. The 80% number may be true, or it may be a result of not understanding that the MMM exists throughout the entire body, not just in the GI tract. Chapter 3: Where Is My MMM? will answer this question.

The reality is that our microbiome and microbiota diversity is uniquely individual, with no two humans having the same ecosystem and thus MMM. And a person’s MMM is constantly adapting throughout the body. Diversity may be the opposite of silver bullet dogma.

A microbiome with high diversity has the tools in its arsenal to support a healthy milieu anywhere in the body. Just as stem cells are created and stored in bone marrow, the GI tract and appendix are currently deemed to be primary repositories of microbial diversity.

Birth and Childhood

Each individual begins to establish their GI tract and whole-body microbiome in the mother’s placenta (in utero) and continues throughout childhood.2 Thus when attempting to regain a more robust health status, literally examining a given person’s microbial diversity journey is essential.

It has been shown in countless medical journal articles that even your birth order within your family determines your microbial diversity, susceptibility to allergies, and immune competence.3 In turn, there is clear evidence that a vaginal birth dramatically impacts GI flora, enhancing diversity and volume of the fledgling MMM.4 Also, a hospital birth vs. home birth may make a difference.5 Needless to say, any medical interventions and interactions with hospital staff or sterilizing (cleaning) agents can directly alter microbial diversity. After all, nosocomial infections (hospital infections and germs) are well documented. Also, if an infant is breastfed, he or she will be exposed to maternal MMM, in mother’s colostrum, milk, and microbiota on the skin and the breast surface.

Care for the newborn infant, toddler, and child are also factors that can influence microbial diversity. Food prepared by various individuals will bring exposure to their unique microbial profile. In turn, if a child is raised with pets, it can positively impact their microbial diversity and immune competence.6

Who’s in the Kitchen?

In Chapter 9 – Diet, Lifestyle, and Supplement Considerations – we will discuss all food factors, not just pathogens. These include dietary diversity, GMO, organic, nutrient depleted foods, irradiated food, homogenized, vegetarian, and the harmful effects of ingested alkalinity.

Indeed, food selection is paramount to creating and sustaining a healthy microbiota and thus is part of establishing a healthy, dynamic MMM. Dietary considerations will be discussed in chapter 9. We will discuss exposure to pathogens that can impact the MMM. Whether it is foodborne illness or exposure to a parasite, amoeba, or similar organisms, the root of exposure is contaminated water or food with a common denominator, fecal contamination. It’s reasonable to suggest sanitary practices in food handling while trying to rebalance an altered MMM.

Likewise, your exposure to broader dietary diversity could be astronomically higher if you frequently eat out at a variety of ethnic and varied restaurants where food is freshly prepared. Fast food and fast casual dining restaurants will have the opposite effect on your microbial diversity. Ultimately, your health and safety are dependent on the education, attention to detail, and care applied to food preparation, including the rinsing of fresh produce before prepping. By not rinsing off the food, you have more of a chance of being exposed to dangerous contaminants than you do of exposing yourself to probiotics found in soil.

We each have unique susceptibility as captured in the diagram below. This is merely an example of what happens if there is low stomach acid from aging, medication, or fad pseudoscience, such as alkaline water.

Who’s in the Bathroom?

It is self-evident that bathrooms at home or in public are not hygienic. Indeed, it would be the rare person that washes their hands before flushing the toilet. Thus, the toilet handle is contaminated with human microbiota, as is the bathroom stall door, faucets, paper towel dispenser, and the notorious bathroom door handle.

Medicine is aware of the benefits that the microbiome contracted from other people has on GI health as now evidenced by the use of fecal transplants to treat conditions such as infection with the bacteria Clostridioides difficile.

We will further explore these hazards and benefits. So too will we explore the concept of what is sterile? The question of sterility is raised as we establish that you absorb nutrients (especially vitamins) from the bolus or fecal matter in your colon.

Who’s in the Bedroom?

Intimate partner exposure is also considered when looking at shifts in microbiota diversity and the MMM. Just as with food, oral contact with surfaces, human or inanimate, will expose you to potentially new and novel bacterial species. Exposure is exposure, whether it be from the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, family pet, or garden. The skin is well inoculated, which also speaks to the MMM’s expansive reach in the body far beyond the GI tract. See further discussion in Chapter 8: Skin Microbiome.

The Reality

Our microbial selves play an integral role in who we are. They impact our thinking and overall existence. They equate to the total number of human cells or exceed them.7

Our unique maternal and paternal genetics and individual microbiome also can impact our microbiome and MMM.7

Transmission of genetics described above and microbiome described below from parent to progeny is an essential start for life. For instance, research has shown that altered microbiota can contribute to obesity. Thus, it is both nature and nurture that dictates our health throughout life. A heavier parent often has heavier children. Is this from genetics, diet, environment, exercise habits, or the influence of all exposures?8 In Chapter 2 we will discuss food and environment. In Chapter 9 we will discuss diet and lifestyle.

Clinical Considerations Impacting the Microbiome and MMM

Who is working for whom? The microbiome can actually influence your thoughts, your mood, and your brain health.

“The gut microbiota is associated with brain development and function, as well as altered emotional, motor, and cognitive behaviors in animals.”9

We mention this to establish a shared appreciation of the many factors that impact the microbiome and MMM. As we discuss specific organ and tissue microbiota in the following chapters, it will become clear that the philosophy and science of the MMM have been established. The research community is doing an excellent job in advancing the science of the impact of the microbiota, microbiome, metagenome, and even the metabolome. The limitation is integrating the MMM concept from a holistic perspective so that you can use it to eliminate your health challenges. The whole of the MMM is greater than the sum of its parts.

How Diet Impacts the Microbiome and Consequently Your Overall Health

“…the microbiome may be more readily reshaped by environmental factors such as dietary exposures and is increasingly recognized to potentially impact human physiology by participating in digestion, the absorption of nutrients, shaping of the mucosal immune response, and the synthesis or modulation of a plethora of potentially bioactive compounds. Thus, diet-induced microbiota alterations may be harnessed in order to induce changes in host physiology, including disease development and progression.“10

The authors suggest that the food and microcontaminants a person eats may alter the microbiome, which affects appetite, fermentation and availability of nutrients, fat accumulation, which affect health of the body, as well as cognitive behavior.

Just as cells that comprise the body are vulnerable and responsive to total nutritional status, digestive health, and ingested disruptive factors such as allergens and environmental toxins, so is the microbiota throughout the body vulnerable and responsive to these factors. All of these factors also strengthen or weaken the MMM’s ability to protect against imbalances that arise from internal and external threats to sustained homeostasis.

A couple of decades ago, we perceived the brain as protected by an essentially impermeable and protective blood-brain barrier (BBB), the ultimate shield of the neurons of our central nervous system. Research has found that the BBB is vulnerable to damage via leaky gut, known as leaky brain.11 Leaky gut—what scientists call increased intestinal permeability—refers to a weakened gut lining. This allows undigested food particles and pathogenic bacteria to slip through the intestinal walls into systemic circulation, causing problems throughout the body, including the brain. Chapter 6: Brain, BBB & Neurological MMM provides further evidence of the value of the MMM in the BBB.

Now we hypothesize that the entry and exit of nutrients, waste, and contaminants through the BBB are controlled by the MMM, which is an integral part of the BBB. The MMM supports and protects the function of the BBB.

“The human gut contains trillions of bacterial cells that are reported to be at a ratio of approximately 1:1 with our own cells. Thus, they (the bacteria or MMM) form a vibrant living population that has metabolic activity similar to the liver. There is consequently a move to describe the microbiota, as a whole, a new human organ.”12

This demonstrates that research scientists are coming close to arriving at a similar, albeit limited, concept of the MMM. Describing the microbiota as an organ is partially true. But the MMM acts more like a system than an organ, such as the vascular, lymph, and ATP systems. The microbiota isn’t the only factor that comes into play with cellular and biochemical communication identified by MMM theory. Scientists go on to speak of the integral importance of the intestinal mucosa, a very forward-looking concept. Yet, regarding the MMM, it is vitally important not to limit our look at merely GI microbiota or mucosa.

“Their [the microbiota’s] intimate association with the intestinal mucosa, which is also highly biologically active with a high cellular turnover rate, can be expected to have a major impact on human health and the prevention or precipitation of disease. The gut microbiota has a symbiotic relationship with the host, playing a role in maintaining health and metabolic homeostasis through the production of many metabolites. The collective genomes of these micro-organisms that inhabit the gut are referred to as the metagenome. The development of the gut microbiome begins before birth and in healthy individuals is largely completed within three years, but can be modified by environmental factors, particularly diet composition and volume, and antibiotic therapy.”12

The lack of maturity of a child’s microbiome reflects the heightened level of susceptibility of kids to altered GI, sinus, and all other organ integrity and serves as a source of vulnerability to the entire body’s biochemical and physiological processes.

“Recent studies have suggested that the intestinal microbiome plays an important role in modulating the risk of several chronic diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. At the same time, it is now understood that diet plays a significant role in shaping the microbiome, with experiments showing that dietary alterations can induce large, temporary microbial shifts within 24 hours. Given this association, there may be significant therapeutic utility in altering microbial composition through diet.”13

A composite of the five M’s—Microbiota, Microbiome, Metagenome, Metabolome, Mucosal-Terrain—yields the MMM-combined effect that exerts a pervasive influence locally and globally throughout the body. Much like a pebble dropped into a lake, the result reaches far beyond the point of impact. Magnify this effect by trillions of pebbles, each with their competing sphere of influence, and we see the impact to any alteration of the MMM.

Knowing that the skin, organs, and tissues throughout the body each have their microbiome interacting with all other interconnected microbiomes, we must multiply the numbers shared here by many fold . In the GI tract, most microbiotas reside within the more distal parts of the digestive tract, where their biomass surpasses 1,011 cells per gram.14

Beyond the presence of select microbes in the gut is their contribution to biosynthesis of vitamins, essential amino acids, and metabolic byproducts from dietary components purposefully unprocessed by the small intestine. Among these byproducts of microbial metabolism are short chain fatty acid (SCFA) byproducts such as butyrate, propionate, and acetate that serve as a primary energy source for cells lining the intestines and may therefore strengthen the mucosal barrier.13

As we proceed through our presentation of MMM Theory, we will examine how the local and total MMM impacts various systems (such as circulatory, energy, nervous, and behavioral) and organs throughout the body. Chapter 9 will explore specific impacts of diet and lifestyle on the microbial mucosa milieu. As we explore the role of the MMM throughout the following chapters, we’ll discuss the effect of diet, lifestyle, and supplementation and their relationship to alterations in the MMM. For example, a short-term change in diet—such as to one that is strictly animal-based or plant-based—alters microbial composition within just 24 hours of beginning the diet, reversing to baseline within 48 hours of diet discontinuation.14 Likewise, consider the research on the hormonal disruption and circadian impact seen in the gut microbiome of animals fed a high-fat or high-sugar diet.14

Notes For Scientists and Clinicians

Mucosal health is achieved by creating a fertile environment for the microbiota to reside and then delivering nutrients essential for host health, also ensuring self-preservation.

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MMM Theory is available in paperback and Kindle format at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJHB9HKG

References

  1. www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/conditions/inflammation/index.cfm (Accessed Nov. 2022)
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Published November 18, 2023

About the Authors

Howard M. Simon is an entrepreneur, inventor, and researcher. He is the founder of Rejuvenation Science and Maximum Vitality. He is the creator of MMM Theory after suffering from ulcerative colitis for 20+ years. Believing that no one should have to suffer the ravages of such diseases, he set out to understand this condition. As MMM Theory evolved, it became much broader than expected.

Howard Simon holds an MBA from the University of Southern California. At Xerox Corporation he was the Strategy Manager of an intrapreneurial division that grew annual revenue from 1 to 140 million USD. He formulated the top practitioner multivitamin as rated in the Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements. Having recovered from UC, he now enjoys playing beach volleyball regularly with folks half his age.

Dr. Chris D. Meletis, ND, is an educator, international author, and lecturer. His mission is “Changing the World’s Health One Person at a Time.” Dr. Meletis has authored 18 books and over 200 national scientific articles in journals, including Natural Health, Alternative and Complementary Therapies, NDNR, Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Life Extension, Natural Pharmacy, and articles appearing on PubMed.gov.

Dr. Meletis served as Dean of Naturopathic Medicine and Chief Medical Officer for 7 years for the National College of Naturopathic Medicine (now the National University of Natural Medicine). The American Association of Naturopathic Physicians awarded him 2003 Physician of the Year. He has a deep passion for helping the underprivileged and spearheaded creation of 16 free natural medicine healthcare clinics in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area.