Do you want to live a long and vibrant life? Do you want more energy?
Do you want to avoid falling prey to age-related chronic diseases, like cancer, heart disease and diabetes?
The you gotta boost the health and efficiency of your mitochondria,
and in today’s video I’m going to show you how to do just that.
The health of the mitochondria has a ripple effect on most of the other causes of aging,
which is why I think improving the health of the mitochondria i the best way to live longer and defy aging.
In my Hallmarks of Aging video,
I mention that one of the best ways to clear up a lot of the hallmarks
is to clear up the things that are upstream from them.
And mitochondrial dysfunction is upstream of almost everything.
In the other videos in this series, we’ve talked about what the mitochondria are,
how they function and what their purpose is.
We’ve talked about what happens when they start to malfunction,
and the impact that has on the aging process.
In this video, we’re going wrap up this series by talking about how to boost mitochondrial health and function.
And it’s not rocket science, it’s really simple things that are pretty easily achieved.
Things like eating right and being more active.
Improving mitochondrial health means improving cellular function.
Now, that’s usually not the first things that comes to mind
when we think about strategies to extend our lifespan.
Primary, because it can be so difficult to notice a subjective boost in mitochondrial function.
But whether we can detect it or not,
science is pretty clear that healthy mitochondria play an important role in cognition, physical performance and aging.
Mitochondrial dysfunction, at it’s most fundamental level, is when the production of ATP goes down,
when it goes into decline.
So improving mitochondrial health means doing anything which increases ATP production…
whether it's improving the efficiency of the individual mitochondrion,
increasing the population of healthy mitochondria in the cell, or getting rid of dysfunctional mitochondria.
The symptoms of mitochondrial dysfunction start showing up about a decade
before any permanent damage is done,
and if you catch it early enough, mitochondrial dysfunction is totally reversible.
Now, there is a test called the MitoSwab that’ll reveal how well your mitochondria are functioning,
but at my age, if I’m not actively doing something boost their health,
I figure that the mitochondria in my cells are probably not functioning at their peak performance.
OK, so most of the strategies that will improve the health and function of the mitochondria
can be broken down into 2 categories: exercise and nutrition.
Now, I know, I’m starting to sound like a broken record.
But it’s true…eating right and putting stress on the body through exercise
provide so many benefits that it’s difficult to list all of them.
So, let’s start with nutrition, but let’s break it down even further, into what you eat, and how you eat.
For optimal mitochondrial health,
you should be eating whole, organ foods that are minimally processed or refined.
Proteins, like meat, fish, nuts & seeds, beans and eggs, and essential amino acids, like glutathione…
they all act to protect the mitochondria.
Eating dark green, leafy vegetables, which contain magnesium,
and colorful vegetables, which are rich in antioxidants,
as well as healthy fats, like fish oil, avocados, coconut oil, olive oil and nuts are all pro-mitochondrial health.
It’s all the foods that you’ve heard me talk about before.
Just as important as foods, are supplements.
Vitamins B, C, and E, the minerals iron, selenium, and zinc are important.
Magnesium is particularly important, as it is essential for the production of ATP,
and it’s available in those dark green, leafy vegetables.
So is ALA, or alpha lipoic acid. It contains antioxidants, it supports energy and protect the mitochondria.
And, it promotes mitochondrial biogenesis.
This is the process of mitochondrial renewal, which causes an increase in the total number of mitochondria.
And the more mitochondria there are, the less “overworked” individual mitochondrion will be.
CoQ10, or ubiquinol is another supplement which has all the same properties as ALA.
And it is required for proper functioning of the electron transport chain,
which is a process in the mitochondria that, when it’s functioning at peak performance,
produces about 90 - 95% of the ATP in our bodies.
PPQ is another supplement that is an antioxidant and supports mitochondrial biogenesis.
Another compound that is critical to cellular respiration and the production of ATP is NAD+,
so anything you can do to boost levels of NAD+ will help.
Things like supplementing with NAD+ precursors like NMN or NR.
Another possible strategy to boost NAD+ levels is to clear out senescent cells.
Ellagitannins are a type of polyphenols that are present in some fruits, nuts and seeds
and they can metabolize into different types of a compound called urolithins,
and one of those, called Urolithin A, enhances mitophagy,
which is the programmed recycling of mitochondria.
Pomegranates, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, pecans, and walnuts all provide ellagitannins
But nutrition is more than just what you put in your body.
It’s also how you eat.
Now, there’s a couple of nutritional strategies for improving mitochondrial health.
And one of the best is something that you’ve heard me talk about many times before…
intermittent fasting, or IF.
Intermittent fasting does a few different things.
First, it helps maintain a healthy, fused network within the mitochondria.
Mitochondrial networks are constantly alternating between a fused, or “youthful”, state
and a fragmented state, which is considered “dysfunctional”.
As mitochondrial health declines,
the mitochondrial network tends to move towards a more fragmented state.
Intermittent fasting moves it back towards a more fused state, maintaining a balance between both states,
which is critical for healthy mitochondria.
Intermittent fasting also helps to modulate fat metabolism.
Youthful, fused networks increase lifespans
by communicating with organelles called “peroxisomes” to increase fatty acid oxidation.
And finally, intermittent fasting also activates the AMPK pathway…but more on that later.
Another nutritional strategy that can improve mitochondrial health is to occasionally detox.
Detoxing will rid the body of a number of toxins and medications
that can be harmful to mitochondrial health.
Things like statins, which disrupt mitochondrial function in the muscles
and beta-blockers, which are linked to muscle mitochondrial syntheses.
Antibiotics, certain anti-cancer drugs, artificial food colors, some forms of aluminum and air pollution,
all bad for mitochondrial health.
Even metformin, while being medication that promotes life extension, is bad for the mitochondria.
It inhibits the electron transport chain by causing NADH to build up.
Detoxing occasionally will clear out accumulations of these substances and allow the body to rebound.
As important as nutrition is to mitochondrial health, there’s something that’s even more important.
And that’s exercise. Getting up and moving around. Putting physical stress n the body.
Putting it in a state at least once a day, where you’re panting.
And the best form of exercise for boosting your mitochondrial health
is performing high intensity interval training.
Performing HIIT checks all the boxes.
It improves the efficiency of the individual mitochondrion,
it increases the number of healthy mitochondria in the cell
and it helps to remove dysfunctional mitochondria.
There was an article in the March, 2017 issue of Science Daily about the benefits of exercise on the mitochondria.
Sreekumaran Nair, the senior author of the study and a doctor at the Mayo Clinic, said,
"Based on everything we know,
there's no substitute for these exercise programs when it comes to delaying the aging process.”
He said that they were seeing results that can’t be achieved using any medicine or drug.
When you perform HIIT, it puts a huge demand on the cells for energy.
As that demand goes up, the call goes out to make more ATP.
The mitochondria respond to this call by up-regulating the production of ATP,
and as the production of ATP improves, the function of the mitochondria improves.
But mitochondria also respond to physical stress by making more of themselves,
through a process called mitochondrial biogenesis.
As the mitochondria work harder to produce ATP, they make more Reactive Oxygen Species, or ROS.
ROS acts as a signaling molecule
that tells the cells to launch mitochondrial biogenesis and make more mitochondria.
But HIIT also triggers autophagy.
Mitochondria that fail to meet the need for higher levels of ATP get broken down and recycled,
with their components being used to create new mitochondria, through biogenesis.
And HIIT works pretty fast to re-store mitochondrial function.
In tests, subjects who performed HIIT were able to improve mitochondrial function in as little as 30 days.
Not bad.
But there’s even more that you can do to give your mitochondrial health a boost.
Activate your AMPK pathway.
AMPK pathway activation promotes autophagy, eliminating damaged DNA and misfolded proteins.
It induces mitochondrial biogenesis.
It stimulates the production of SIRT1, one of the sirtuins and an enzyme that repairs DNA.
The AMPK pathway is also critical to the immune system.
It enhances the ability of white blood cells to home in on and destroy invading bacteria.
And it inhibits the signaling of a pro-inflammatory pathway called the nuclear factor-kappaB pathway.
And that results in reduced chronic inflammation.
How do you activate the AMPK pathway? Same stuff we’ve been talking about.
Doing intermittent fasting and performing high intensity interval training.
Taking supplements like glucominnan, a soluble fiber.
ALA, quercetin, fish oil, curcumin, and EGCG, or epigallocatechin, from green tea.
And take metformin.
While it might be detrimental to the electron transport chain, it’s does help to activate the AMPK pathway.
If you detox occasionally, you’ll get rid of accumulated metformin
and allow your body to reset before continuing in your metformin regimen.
As I mentioned previously, mitochondrial health is a primary aspect of the Hallmarks of Aging,
and if you’d like to learn more about that, check out my video on…
the Hallmarks of Aging right here.
Catch ya next time.