Read “The Acquittal of Carbon Dioxide” by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD,
Revised November 11, 2009
Abstract
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well‐known but under‐appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2‐rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere.
Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation. Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase. If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere.
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Metabolic health, medical education, and the case for bringing clinicians and coaches together
At the 2026 Unbreakable Health Retreat in Miami, Emily Kaplan hosted a panel with Bob Kaplan, Professor Thomas Seyfried, and Dr. Derek Lee on what it means to treat cancer as a metabolic disease. They discussed the glucose-ketone index (GKI), nutritional ketosis, and strategies aimed at restricting the fuels cancer cells depend on while considering how metabolic therapy can fit alongside standard cancer treatment.
The conversation also addressed the practical realities patients face when trying to pursue a metabolic approach within the conventional oncology system, including questions about nutrition, repurposed drugs, inherited cancer risk, and how to evaluate different treatment options. Seyfried and Lee connected these clinical questions back to mitochondrial dysfunction, fermentation, and the metabolic vulnerabilities that may offer additional targets for cancer treatment.
An abbreviated version of this discussion is available here, for free.
At the 2026 Unbreakable Health Retreat in Miami, Professor Thomas Seyfried presented the case that cancer is fundamentally a mitochondrial metabolic disease rather than primarily a genetic one. He contrasts the dominant somatic mutation theory with a metabolic model in which impaired mitochondrial respiration drives a shift toward fermentation, dysregulated cell growth, and the mutations commonly associated with cancer.
Citing the work of Otto Warburg and research from his lab at Boston College, Seyfried explains how cancer cells rely heavily on fermentable fuels—particularly glucose and glutamine—and why mitochondrial dysfunction sits upstream of many of the genetic abnormalities seen in tumors. He also discusses reactive oxygen species, altered cellular signaling, and the role of mitochondria in regulating cell growth and behavior.
The presentation then turns to the therapeutic implications of this model. Seyfried explains strategies aimed at placing tumor cells under metabolic stress by restricting the fuels they depend on, including ketogenic metabolic therapy and approaches targeting glucose and glutamine. For Seyfried, the therapeutic target follows directly from the biology: restrict the fuels cancer cells depend on, exploit their metabolic weaknesses, and treat mitochondrial dysfunction as the central feature of the disease.
An abbreviated version of this discussion is available here, for free.
MetFix and BSI Members can view the full 54-minute video.
