The Natural Sulfur Cycle
“Sulfur” exists in two forms in nature—as a hard yellow granular elemental mineral (not bio-available) and as a part of an organic white compound molecule (bio-available). The yellow mineral sulfur, from mining, is present in a volcano’s lava that’s forced into the ocean through volcanic activity on the ocean floor. These under-water volcanoes are called black smokers. The molten mineral sulfur in lava from black smokers reacts with ocean water and is chemically changed into bio-available organic sulfur that becomes a part of ocean water. Through evaporation, condensation, and ingestion by sea life, organic sulfur is supposed to end up on land as a part of the nutrient cycle for plants and animals. Animals and people then consume bio-available organic sulfur. That’s the positive natural sulfur cycle (which was largely eliminated by technology c. 1954).
Fertilizers
Around 1865, I.G. Farben first produced chemical fertilizers from coal tar. And, dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO1) was first synthesized in 1866, which was later found to be an effective transdermal agent.[1] In the 1930s Farben collaborated with Nelson Rockefeller and Prescott Bush to develop and aggressively market chemical fertilizers made from crude oil (ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate). Manufacturing chemical fertilizers requires production temperatures about 100 degrees F above the vaporization point of organic sulfur. Bio-available sulfur evaporates in that process. The elimination of this essential food (that happened during the manufacture of chemical fertilizers) was ignored.
In the mid-1950s, by federal legislation, farmers were encouraged to use chemical fertilizers, which are less expensive, easier to apply, and completely absent of bio-available sulfur. Over the last 70 years agriculture’s reliance on chemical fertilizers has effectively eliminated the natural sulfur cycle. From the early 1950s to the present day, with the mandating of chemical fertilizers, disease rates in North America went up drastically and continue to rise at an alarming rate. Food quality has drastically diminished. MDs, NDs, and other health professionals, when asked about sulfur, usually respond: “We get all the sulfur we need from the food we eat.” That may have been true until governments passed legislation in 1954, which legalized the 100% use of chemical fertilizers. Chemical fertilizer companies got rich and illness increased.
Additionally, and for the last 100 years, the horrendous increase of air-born pollutants, chemical toxins, heavy metals in food, artificial growth hormones, stress, pesticides, GMO dead food (which damages body cells), microwave ovens, destructive pharmaceuticals, aggressive marketing of harmful vaccines, flavor “enhancers” like MSG, and processed foods all contribute to the increase of illness, trauma, body-cell damage, and immune-system deficiency. None of these contain organic sulfur. Our “modern era” toxic-stress load is hundreds of times more a burden on our physiology and psychology than at any time in the past.
Diseases we hadn’t even heard of in the early 1970s have become common. Addictions, allergies, asthma, autoimmune illnesses, arthritis, autism, cancer, chemical sensitivities, diabetes, environmental illnesses, GI complications, heart conditions, high blood pressure, mood ‘disorders’, obesity, stress disorders, decreasing recovery rates from illness, yeast infections, increased generic pain, premature aging, and the dependence on harmful pharmaceuticals, sugars, alcohol, and drugs (all with destructive side-effects) have grown at an unprecedented rate.
As illness and stress increase (both biological and emotional) there is a concomitant requirement
for an increased need for organic sulfur.[2]
