Left-sided Afflictions

One of the most interesting observations that I’ve made over the years is that 90%+ of the things that could spontaneously occur on either side of the dog’s body (e.g. immune-mediated diseases of the eye, cruciate ruptures, lipomas, even ear infections) happen on the left side first. I first saw this pattern in disorders of the eye, such as dry eye, glaucoma, uveitis, episcleritis, spontaneous corneal ulcers (immune keratitis) and the like. (Although that is not why we call the right eye oculis dexter and the left eye oculis sinister, it is an interesting “coincidence”.) But then I noticed that I was doing many more left cruciate repairs than right ones.

In the medical literature, I found that breast cancer occurred more frequently in the left breast of women and the same was true of bone cancer in children. The other day, I had a dog in the exam room that had seven different things wrong with its left side, including an eye disorder, ear infection, tumor on the nose, lipoma of the chest and a ruptured cruciate ligament. I scoured the right side and could not find a single thing wrong with it.

I used to write on multiple neurology forums while sharing my work on the dietary management of epilepsy and posted a thread on on an MS forum called “left-sided afflictions”. I wanted to inquire into this pattern in cases of MS to see if it would hold up. Everyone who had developed optic neuritis as one of their symptoms responded by saying that it had hit their left eye first. Most agreed that their left side was more afflicted when the MS was a peripheral issue (spinal cord) but that the right was more afflicted if it was a central issue (brain). This is due to the fact the signals cross side in the brain, with the left hemisphere controlling the right side.

Similarly, most of the people I know who have had strokes have had their right side be affected, which means it was the left hemisphere of the brain that suffered the stroke. This was true of my mother and one of my best friends.

The pattern is quite consistent and is not like a 60:40 thing but more like a 90:10 thing, about the same incidence as right vs. left handedness, interestingly enough. People often point this out and ask whether I think it is because of individuals being right vs left-handed. That may be true in some orthopedic conditions in people but studying the dog suggests otherwise. Although dogs also have a right-sided preference, according to researchers, the fact that seven things could be wrong on one side of a dog but nothing abnormal on the right side should tell us that most conditions (involving the eye, ear, breast, skin, bone) have nothing to do with being right or left handed.

When people really want to know what I think about this, I smile and tell them: “At the time the developing embryo distinguishes the two different sides of the body, the sheep go to the right and the goats go to the left.” But seriously, here’s a “little” clue: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1187859/

Turns out, it’s all about polarity. Those in Eastern medicine, who study all about Chi and chakras, know that the head and the right side are our positive poles while the left side and feet are the negative. It is generally held that viruses and bacteria are positively charged microorganisms. If that’s so, they would tend to migrate to the negative poles, which would be to the left side. Similarly, free radicals from air pollution, cigarette smoke, and other carcinogenic sources are positively charged molecules that seek to steal electrons from cells, thus creating inflammation in the tissues from which they rob these electrons. These, too, would tend to migrate to the negative pole (left side).

So…we have inflammatory free radicals bombarding the cells of the left side that also have the highest concentration of viruses and bacteria within their cell walls. No wonder most “autoimmune diseases” and cancer occur mostly on the left side.

Better start taking your antioxidants, which are the “solution to pollution” and serve to neutralize free radicals. The most notable antioxidants are vitamin C, E, and grape seed extract. How do they work? These life-saving negatively-charged molecules freely give up an electron to the hungry free radical and satisfy its appetite so that it won’t steal electrons from cells, which operate at an ideal millivoltage and become ill when their voltage gets too positive. Yin and yang.

More very soon. Watch for it on BlogtorJ.

Dogtor J