FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 24, 2025

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine - The Peak of Mechanistic Medicine, Not Root Cause Healing

By Richard Z. Cheng, M.D., Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief, Orthomolecular Medicine News Service (orthomolecular.org)

How Modern Living Breaks Immune Balance - and How Orthomolecular Medicine Rebuilds It

"The Nobel showed how the immune system balances itself - Orthomolecular Medicine shows why it breaks, and how to fix it."

What the Nobel spotlighted - and what it didn't

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine honored a landmark discovery: how regulatory T cells (Tregs) and the FOXP3 gene keep the immune system from attacking our own tissues.

This work revealed how immune balance is maintained - an elegant molecular mechanism that explains tolerance and autoimmunity alike.

But from an Integrative Orthomolecular Medicine (IOM) perspective, another question matters even more:

Why does this regulatory system fail in the first place - and why so often today?

Orthomolecular Medicine looks upstream. It recognizes that modern living constantly injures the same redox-metabolic networks that control FOXP3 and Treg function. These aren't random mutations; they're predictable biochemical consequences of modern living - self-inflicted injuries to the redox terrain.

Three simple examples: how the Nobel's "how" meets IOM's "why"

🍞 1. Diet and metabolism - the everyday saboteur

The Nobel explains that Tregs protect us from inflammation.

IOM adds: a diet of refined carbs, seed oils, and processed foods silences those protectors.

When blood sugar and oxidative stress rise, T cells shift toward the inflammatory "Th17" mode and away from Treg balance. In contrast, whole-food, lower-carb diets rich in antioxidants restore redox calm and produce gut-derived butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid that directly activates FOXP3 [1-3].

Clinical reality: A few weeks of real food and movement can achieve what billion-dollar drugs attempt - restoring immune balance at the source.

☀️ 2. Vitamin and micronutrient repair - the biochemical foundation

Vitamin D3 turns on the FOXP3 gene through the vitamin D receptor [4, 5].

Vitamin C helps "un-methylate" and stabilize it via TET-enzyme activation [6, 7].

Niacin (vitamin B3) and butyrate signal through GPR109A, pushing immune cells toward tolerance and IL-10 production [8].

When these nutrients are low - as they often are - immune regulation unravels. Restoring them isn't alternative medicine - it's cellular hygiene, the true foundation of immune tolerance.

Real-world difference: Where conventional medicine seeks new Treg drugs, Orthomolecular Medicine rebuilds the body's ability to make Tregs naturally.

☣️ 3. Toxins, stress, and the loss of redox control

Air pollutants, plastics, pesticides, chronic infections, and relentless stress all generate oxidative and mitochondrial injury. These directly suppress FOXP3 expression and Treg formation, while promoting inflammatory "Th17" dominance [9, 10].

Toxic overload is today's silent autoimmune trigger. Orthomolecular detoxification rebuilds the very redox landscape the Nobel pathway depends on.

The Nobel mapped the switch; IOM prevents the short-circuit.

Ten upstream root causes that damage immune tolerance

Each of the following ten "root drivers," detailed in From Mutation to Metabolism - Part I (Cheng, Preprints 2025) [11], contributes to loss of immune balance through redox and mitochondrial pathways. Ignore these roots, and the branches of modern disease - autoimmunity, cancer, metabolic chaos - will keep regrowing:

1. Poor diet and metabolic stress - excess sugar and omega-6 seed oils increase ROS and suppress Treg activity [1, 12].
2. Micronutrient deficiencies - low C, D, Zn, Mg, Niacin, Se destabilize FOXP3 and redox enzymes [4, 7, 13].
3. Environmental toxins - PM 2.5, heavy metals, BPA/phthalates trigger oxidative and hormonal disruption [14].
4. Chronic infections & microbiome imbalance - loss of butyrate-producing flora shrinks the Treg pool [15, 16].
5. Hormonal imbalance - estrogen and progesterone normally expand Tregs [17-20].
6. Psychological stress - chronic cortisol elevation reduces Treg formation [21, 22].
7. Physical inactivity - lack of movement weakens mitochondrial and lymphatic function [23, 24].
8. Iatrogenic overload - antibiotics and polypharmacy damage microbiota and detox pathways [25, 26].
9. Epigenetic susceptibility - methylation patterns, not mutations, determine FOXP3 stability [7].
10. Early-life programming - maternal nutrition and infant microbiome set long-term immune tone [27, 28].

Across all ten, the common denominator is mitochondrial and redox injury. When energy metabolism falters, the immune system loses its internal "governor."

How Orthomolecular Medicine restores the balance

• Nutrition first: real food, controlled carbs, abundant antioxidants → fewer ROS, stronger mitochondrial signaling, more Tregs.
• Micronutrient repletion: vitamin C (oral or IV), vitamin D3 to sufficiency, niacin/nicotinamide, adequate Zn/Mg/Se.
• Detox & terrain repair: reduce toxin exposure, rebuild glutathione, support liver and gut.
• Lifestyle alignment: movement, stress recovery, sleep, and hormone balance reinforce mitochondrial-immune crosstalk.

These are not "alternative" interventions; they're biochemical first aid for an over-stressed immune system.

In plain language

• The Nobel scientists showed that a small group of T cells keeps inflammation in check.
• Orthomolecular Medicine shows that our modern lifestyle keeps breaking them.
• Restore the terrain - and those same Nobel pathways start working again.

Closing thought

The 2025 Nobel Prize revealed how the immune system maintains balance - a triumph of molecular biology.

Orthomolecular Medicine explains why that balance is lost, and how to restore it from the root cause.

When we repair the terrain, FOXP3 and Tregs don't need our drugs - they do what evolution designed them to do: keep us in balance

About the Author

Richard Z. Cheng, M.D., Ph.D. - Editor-in-Chief, Orthomolecular Medicine News Service ( orthomolecular.org)

Dr. Cheng is a U.S.-based, NIH-trained, board-certified physician specializing in integrative cancer therapy, orthomolecular medicine, functional & anti-aging medicine. He maintains active practices in both the United States and China.

A Fellow of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and a Hall of Fame inductee of the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine, Dr. Cheng is a leading advocate for nutrition-based, root-cause health strategies. He also serves as an expert reviewer for the South Carolina Board of Medical Examiners, and co-founded both the China Low Carb Medicine Alliance and the Society of International Metabolic Oncology.

Dr. Cheng offers online Integrative Orthomolecular Medicine consultation services.
📰 Follow his latest insights on Substack: https://substack.com/@rzchengmd

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