Decoding Disease with Dr. Rue
Learn to see your body through a different lens.
There comes a point where you begin to sense that what you are experiencing cannot be fully explained by symptoms alone. Patterns repeat, progress feels incomplete, and something deeper is asking to be understood. I’m Dr. Rue, a naturopathic physician focused on chronic illness and integrative oncology, where the work is not about chasing conditions, but about observing the terrain in which they arise.
In this space, we explore how the body adapts, how systems communicate, and how environment, metabolism, and lived experience shape what you feel day to day. The body is not random, and it is not working against you. It responds in ways that reflect its internal and external worlds. As you begin to understand those responses, your relationship with your health begins to change.
These are quiet, intentional conversations designed to bring clarity without removing complexity. If you have ever felt that your experience does not fit into a simple explanation, you are not alone. This is a place to listen more closely, to reconnect, and to begin seeing what may have been there all along.
Decoding Disease with Dr. Rue
The Most Important Structure Nobody Talks About | Ep. 060
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Every second of every day, your cells are making decisions. They decide when to grow, when to repair, when to adapt, and when to hold back. Yet few people ever stop to ask the obvious question: how does a cell know what to do in the first place? Before a tissue changes, before a lab marker shifts, before a symptom appears, something has already informed that decision. Something has already shaped the direction the cell will take.
This is one of the most fascinating realities in biology. Cells are not operating in isolation. They are constantly receiving information and responding to it. Every act of healing, every adaptation, every shift in function begins with a message. The quality of that message may matter far more than most people realize. When you start viewing health through that lens, the conversation changes completely. The question is no longer what the cell is doing. The question becomes what is telling it to do it.
Decoding Disease with Dr. Rue
Decoding Disease with Dr. Rue
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Life begins with a spark. One of the very first events that occurs when a sperm enters an egg is a wave of electrical activity that sweeps across the egg. In many ways, one of the earliest moments of life is electrical. What's fascinating is that the spark doesn't end there. Every cell in your body carries an electrical charge, from your skin cells to your liver cells, immune cells, brain cells, and even the mitochondria that we've spent so many episodes discussing. In our last episode, we talked about communication. We talked about stress, hope, faith, purpose, and the possibility that our experiences may shape the biological environment surrounding ourselves. But that raises a bigger question. How is any of that even possible? How does a cell know what's happening around it? How does a cell know when it's time to grow, adapt, repair, or respond? And before we answer that question, I want to revisit something we briefly touched on earlier in this series, the cell membrane. Because if there's one structure in biology that doesn't get nearly enough credit, it's the membrane. We talk about the brain as though it's one thing. We talk about the liver as though it's one thing, and we do the same with the heart. But they're not. They're communities of cells. Your body contains tens of trillions of them. Tens of trillions. Let that sink in for a moment. Tens of trillions of cells are somehow working together so seamlessly that most of us never stop to think about it. Right now, as you're listening to this podcast, those cells are communicating, adapting, responding, repairing, producing energy, removing waste, and performing countless tasks that keep you alive. And here's what's incredible. Every one of those cells is surrounded by a membrane. Every single one. Without that membrane, there is no cell. Without cells, there is no tissues. Without tissues, there are no organs. And without organs, there is no you. In many ways, membranes are what allow life to organize itself. And here's the part that amazes me. These structures that are helping to keep you alive every second of every day are made of fats and proteins, ladies and gentlemen. That's it. Fats and proteins. Yet somehow, those simple building blocks form the boundaries that allow life itself to exist. Without membranes, cells couldn't separate themselves from the world around them. They couldn't organize themselves and they couldn't specialize. They couldn't become either brain cells, liver, immune, muscle or nerve cells. We wouldn't be a human being. We would simply be biological material with no organization. But membranes do far more than create boundaries. They allow communication, coordination, information to move throughout the body, and that brings us back to mitochondria. Every cell depends on membranes. Every mitochondria depends on membranes. In fact, one of the reasons mitochondria is so fascinating is because many of the processes we've discussed throughout the series depend on the membranes and the differences they create from one side to another within the mitochondria. So no membranes, no organization, no membranes, no communication, no membranes, no energy production. And without any of these things, life simply doesn't happen. Which brings us to the next question. If membranes are this important and if they make communication possible, what role does electricity play in all of this? That's exactly where we're going next.