141: It All Comes Down to Your Mitochondria
All of the parts of your body need energy to do their work. Whether it’s your brain, your heart, your adrenals, your gut, your liver, your eyes, your skin, your kidneys or any other part of your body - the cells must generate enough power so they can function. That’s the job of the mitochondria.
Some parts of the body, like the brain and the eyes, have more mitochondria per cell because they are more metabolically demanding. In fact, age-related conditions like Alzheimer's and macular degeneration are related to poor mitochondrial function. The aging process in general is a decline of mitochondrial health.
Many medical approaches overlook the fact that the organ can’t work unless the mitochondria work. Instead of supporting mitochondrial function, drugs like statins, antibiotics, acid blockers and metformin are prescribed - which further degrade mitochondrial function.
In this week’s podcast we’re talking about ways to supercharge your mitochondria so that all of the parts of your body have the energy to do their job. This is how we slow the aging process and optimize health. Come listen and learn!
EPISODE 141: It All Comes Down to Your Mitochondria
Show Notes
(0:00) Intro
Hello my friend! Welcome back to the club, how are you today?
Today we’re going to talk about the mighty mighty mitochondria.
(4:40) Systems of the body working together:
You’ve probably heard me talk about the order of operations we go in when addressing the body systems and if you’ve been a client and take the Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire (NAQ) you are familiar with this order: digestion - liver function - blood sugar regulation - adrenals - thyroid, hormones, cardiovascular, kidneys, and then immune system. We start with the gut because it is at the core of all of these other systems working properly.
But I’ve learned we can peel back the layers to an even deeper root which is a common thread running through all of these body systems and that’s the mitochondria.
The mitochondria are the energy factories of your cells. Their primary role is to turn nutrients into ATP - adenosine triphosphate - which is the energy that makes your cells work.
The cells must be able to collectively generate energy to make that part of your body work.
If these individual systems are run down then you, as a human, are run down.
So when we are talking about approaching the body as a holistic system we need to support mitochondrial function at the very base level. The mitochondria drive the function of the cell.
(7:27) More on the Mighty Mitochondria:
All of your cells have mitochondria except for your red blood cells.
Some cells have more mitochondria than others because certain parts of your body need more energy production.
That includes your eyes, your brain, your heart and your immune system. And your liver. Those have more mitochondria PER cell because those places need a lot of energy to work.
We ladies actually have the distinction of having the MOST mitochondria which live in our ovaries.
Whereas like your brain, eyes and heart may have 10,000 mitochondria per cell and your liver may have around 2000 per cell, the ovaries, the eggs, the start of human life - have hundreds of thousands.
When it comes to fertility this is something that people need to know and understand - the health of the mitochondria is crucial.
Mitochondrial dysfunction is central to all chronic disease and plays a huge role in neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s, ALS and Parkinson’s.
(9:47) Mitochondria and the Immune System:
We also need to think about the mitochondria when it comes to our immune system.
It plays a role in the regulation of our innate immunity which is what recognizes and responds to infection by pathogens.
There’s something called Mitochondrial antiviral signaling protein (MAVS) which plays a key role in the innate response to viral infections, helping to induce antiviral and anti-inflammatory pathways. Think of it like Maverick from Top Gun shooting down the enemy.
The mitochondria are responsible for cellular respiration.
When you inhale, oxygen gets transferred from your lungs to your cells through your blood. Once the mitochondria of your cells use up the oxygen, carbon dioxide is released from your cells.
This carbon dioxide makes its way back to your lungs to be released into the air through exhalation.
(11:30) So let’s talk about charging our biological batteries:
If we want to improve our gut health, our immune health, our brain health, our liver health, our adrenal health, our hormone health, our skin health…all the healths - we’ve got to charge the batteries to make those systems operate at an optimal level.
(12:24) #1. Be a Fat Burner:
Our mitochondria use the energy we put into our body to make energy for our body. What are the sources of energy? Carbs and fats. Glucose and fatty acids.
Our mitochondria use both BUT they use fatty acids much more cleanly and efficiently.
The body is equipped to handle and deal with some free radicals BUT not an overload. An overload of free radicals is like pressing your foot on the accelerator in aging.
Generating ATP using fatty acids produces fewer free radicals than generating ATP using carbs.
How do we become a better fat burner?
If you’ve been through Feast 2 Fast you know exactly how to do this. You keep carbs at a reasonable level and you intermittent fast.
Those two strategies train your body to burn both glucose and fat for fuel but not too much glucose to where we’re puffing out black exhaust.
Fasting in and of itself is amazing for mitochondrial health because it induces the autophagy process.
Autophagy is the way our cells clean themselves. It’s our body’s way of taking out the trash and part of that trash is damaged mitochondria.
(17:21) #2. Nutrients
When it comes to charging your mitochondrial batteries is getting the right nutrients to spark the engine. There are some really critical minerals needed to create ATP in the body.
The two star minerals for making ATP are magnesium and copper.
Most people are deficient in magnesium because our soil is so deficient, so this IS a place I recommend supplementing.
Copper like we talked about last week is the frenemy of zinc - so we want those in a nice balance.
Organic Olivia has copper in their zinc supplement.
There is copper in liver.
Zinc is also important to give the mitochondria that engine spark as is iron, chromium, calcium and selenium. Does that mean we supplement all those things separately? Noooooo it means we eat a nutrient dense diet as our baseline and maybe supplement with liver as nature’s multivitamin and boost it with some magnesium.
(19:59) #3. Sunshine:
There’s another doctor I follow - this really brilliant neurosurgeon Dr Jack Kruse - who says that sun is more important than food when it comes to mitochondria.
We need the light God made - we need the Son and the sun. We need Jesus Christ and we need sunshine. God gave us the Son to heal our souls and the sunshine to heal our bodies.
Essentially the mitochondria are breaking down our food into electrons but the sun supercharges the electrical energy process. It’s like charging your phone battery in 5 minutes instead of it taking a couple of hours to fully charge.
Free radicals have no electrons so they “steal” electrons from healthy cells causing those cells to be damaged - this is oxidative stress we’re talking about.
We’re going into winter here in the US and so it’s not the time of year to be laying out in the sun. I would still aim for getting morning and evening sunlight into your eyes and really focus on these other ways to boost mitochondria until the weather permits you to get back out under the sun.
I use my Joovv light several times a week which is a light therapy device that puts out red and infrared light.
(25:40) #4. Exercise & #5. Cold Thermogenesis:
Number 4 and 5 I want to talk about together because both are ways to stimulate mitochondrial growth and health by way of hormesis.
Hormesis or Hormetic stress is controlled, acute stress that can trigger a healthy adaptive response meaning your body has to step up its game.
Two very effective hormetic stressors are exercise and cold thermogenesis - or exposing your self to really cold temps for a short amount of time.
This is why people do polar bear plunges, its why Tony Robbins the famous motivational speaker starts his day with a cold plunge, it’s why taking a cold shower is good for you.
Your body has to work harder to keep you warm and this cold stressor causes it to engage your brown fat.
You have two types of fat - one is white, one is brown. White fat is the fat we are all familiar with.
Brown fat produces heat to help maintain your body temperature in cold conditions.
We lose brown fat as we get older but having more brown fat is good because it’s very metabolically active and very good for our metabolism.
And exercise even though we don’t think of it as a stressor, it is. But it’s a good stressor unless you’re overdoing it and then it becomes a chronic stress and that’s no good.
There are lots of studies that show that exercise increases mitochondria biogenesis the force that gives life to our cells.
High-intensity interval training is particularly good stimulating mitochondria but all exercise is going to help so do something.
One study showed that interval training resulted in a 49 percent increase in mitochondrial capacity in younger volunteers and a 69 percent improvement in older ones.
(34:15) #6. Sleep:
Sleep is critical for mitochondrial health. It’s always the same things right - clean food, sunshine, exercise, sleep - I’m telling you its the Genesis Prescription - and sleep is an important part of keeping mitochondria healthy.
Not getting enough sleep results is mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress. Remember that when we sleep, we detox.
One of the things that really drags down the function of our mitochondria are toxins - whether that’s from external sources like environmental pollutants, medications, skin products, home cleaning products OR our internal toxins.
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In the new year in The CHC is working through the 4-month Cellcore foundational protocol.
I’m running the Black Friday special of singing up for the January F2F now and getting 2 months of the CHC free so you can be with us in December and you take a NAQ if want and be ready to go in January with F2F and starting the Cellcore protocol.
(37:44) Closing thoughts:
I wish you an amazing Thanksgiving with your family and friends. Please know how incredibly grateful I am for you and the opportunity to be a part of your health team.
I want to do everything I can to keep your holy temple healthy so that you can show UP to your family and friends at your best - healthy in spirit, mind and body.
(39:16) Outro & Disclaimer
Thanks for listening! Have a healthy and blessed week!