[Charles]

I hope at the very least this thread will be helpful for folks to live a healthy life. As I have stated in the past, I am not at all impressed with medical science. However, I absolutely recommend you follow your doctor's advice, take all prescribed medications and treatments, etc. as you see fit to do.

Now on to diffusion and the role it plays in our demise. All cellular digital information employs random chance by means of passive diffusion to accomplish its creation and transmission from one point in the cell to another.

DNA is a digital molecule. First, let's consider DNA replication. This is accomplished in a semi-conservative fashion, meaning the daughter strand uses the parent strand as the DNA template. There are four DNA bases, adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine (A, G, C, T). No exceptions. In all Life DNA is composed of these bases sometimes called nucleotides. A bonds to T, G bonds to C, no exceptions. Incorrect bonding results in a mutation or replication error.

Let's say the next base on the template is A. For the bond to be correct the DNA polymerase must bond it to a T. It is a fact that regardless of where the DNA is replicated or what the cell type, it is passive diffusion that supplies the base to the enzyme, thus there is a 25% chance at best that the correct base will be supplied. In terms of digital logic, the enzyme must ask and answer on average 4 yes/no questions for a correct bond to occur. If there is an imbalance of nucleotides (bases), it may have to ask many more. Each yes/no question represents an attempt to bond with only one out of four on average (at best) being successful. (This is the reason to eat a balanced diet and stay in shape. It makes, IMO, a significant difference in your health. As we go along I will continue to reinforce this opinion.)

There is no active process. I studied biochemistry for 30 years before understanding this fact because it is not specifically dealt with in biochemistry books. So all cells employ the second law of thermodynamics in the form of random diffusion to replicate their DNA, i.e. their digital information.

Now let's do some math.The body has 80 trillion cell divisions per year because it needs this number of new cells to maintain itself. A human cell contains 6 billion nucleotides that must be successfully replicated. For this to happen the DNA polymerase enzyme must ask an average of 4 yes/no questions with each question being an attempt to bond. The enzyme relies on passive diffusion to supply the base (nucleotide). Therefore, it is critical for there to be an equal supply of these 4 molecules all through the cell.

This works out per year to 1.92e+24 yes/no questions the polymerase enzymes must answer successfully for no mutations to occur. The DNA polymerase enzyems are not up to this task so mutations are inevitable. They cannot be avoided. It works out to about one mutation (bonding error) per 6 billion bases or about one mutation per replacement cell. This is under the very best of circumstances. During our lifetimes we are exposed to numerous carcinogens, many of which are a result of an unhealthy lifestyle, that cause the built-in error inherent to replication to be much worse. By the age of 80 I estimate my body will have accumulated 20-30 quadrillion mutations, as a result of the built-in error caused by passive diffusion.

In my next post I will propose a theoretical solution to this problem. If the polymerase could by means of an active process always be supplied with the correct base, mutations could be eliminated. If this active process was inactivated or destroyed, random diffusion would be the backup mechanism for supplying the base to the enzyme. Could human cells be operating using the backup system of passive diffusion? I hope there might be some comments which would be much appreciated.

Best

Charles