THE MITOCHONDRIAC MANIFESTO

A comprehensive approach to health and well-being that focuses on the role that mitochondria play in relation to one’s environment.

Independent researcher Lee observes that incidence of chronic disease continues to increase, despite the increasing power of medical technology to respond to ailments. Going against the grain of “orthodox medicine,” which he sweepingly dismisses as propaganda and fraud, he argues that contemporary disease and ill health isn’t caused by genetic factors or remediable by pharmaceutical interventions. The problem, he asserts, is one’s environment, or more specifically, the extent to which one’s natural relation to it has been replaced by a technologically engineered one. Human beings, Lee says, are sickened, in part, because they’re cut off from their natural sources of energy: touching the earth, drinking uncontaminated water, having direct exposure to sunlight, and eating seasonally appropriate food. In order to justify his claims, the author explains what he calls “mitophysics,” or the science of mitochondria and circadian rhythms in which biochemical processes are dependent upon electromagnetic input; this, he says, includes visible and invisible light frequencies, water, and magnetism. These inputs, he writes, are converted into energy called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, by mitochondria; however, if the body is cut off from these inputs, of if they’re replaced by artificially constructed ones, one will begin to experience ill health, he says: “When our world changes, but our programming stays the same, it’s a disaster for our biology.” Lee contends that this shift accounts for virtually everything that debilitates people, including cancer, diabetes, obesity, allergies, and infertility.

The author eschews the conventional process of citing professional scientific literature, which he insists is generally worthless dogma. However, he also admits that he isn’t a scientist and hasn’t completely read the literature that he debunks or favorably cites. Most of the information he presents has been culled from various online lectures, and the tone of the book is reminiscent of an infomercial, as when the author immodestly assures the reader that he’ll present only “cutting-edge principles,” and that his book is “profound but rare.” He also consistently asserts, without substantiating evidence, that mainstream medicine is essentially hucksterism. He does effectively communicate his own confidence in his own theories, as well as his certainty that the medical establishment is entirely corrupt: “Let me say without a doubt probably 80-90% of this material will ultimately prove to be somewhere between on the right track to amazingly accurate in its depiction and prediction.” The central failing of the book is a lack of corroborating evidence for the theories presented and a host of unproven claims. For example, he advocates “earthing,” or “touching bare skin to grass, sand, rock, clay, or dirt” as a means to greater health without an empirical substantiation of it. Lee is not wrong to assert that doctors aren’t infallible gods and that they may sometimes be motivated primarily by financial incentives. However, he’s equally credulous when it comes to the “mountains of esoteric science” that he uncritically accepts.  

An earnest but thoroughly unscientific treatise.