By Dr. George Stanton DC
There is a lot of buzz right now around mitochondria. If you listen to podcasts or are into biohacking, it has most likely come across at some point. The goal of this article is to introduce the basics and why mitochondria are important to your health.
Let’s begin with the definition from medical-dictionary.com:
Mitochondria: a small, spherical to rod-shaped, membrane-bounded cytoplasmic organelle, the principal sites of ATP synthesis; mitochondria also contain enzymes of the citric acid cycle and ones for fatty acid oxidation, oxidative phosphorylation, and other biochemical pathways. They also contain DNA, RNA, and ribosomes; they replicate independently and synthesize some of their own proteins.
Whoa, what?! That is a pretty dense paragraph. Well mitochondria are complex, but to simplify it: they make our energy!
We need an energy input for everything that we do; move, think, detox, sleep, run, walk, brainstorm, heartbeats, immune function, digestion, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g! Your body is constantly making energy and constantly using energy…exhausting, right? Well, when your mitochondria work properly, you feel great! But when they start to become faulty or their numbers are depleted, you will certainly feel its effects.
Look at it this way:
When you have an energy dysfunction, there will be cellular dysfunction. When cells dysfunction, you will have organ dysfunction. When organs dysfunction, you will have a disease process. A disease process = a diagnosis. So, where there is a diagnosis (diabetes, obesity, autoimmune disease etc), there is energy dysfunction a.k.a mitochondrial dysfunction.
A very important process to mitochondrial health and function is eating. The whole purpose of eating is to break down what we consume into substrates, vitamins, and minerals to produce energy. We can even break down existing fats and protein to produce fuel in times when we haven’t eaten. Imagine if you have a campfire, and you put a nice big piece of wood on it, the log will get broken down and converted into energy. Now imagine you put an already burnt piece of wood on that fire… it will still get broken down into energy, but it is not as efficient as the fresh log. The same goes for our fuel, too. We can put some “good” fuel into our bodies that will be utilized more efficiently, or some poor fuel that, although still gets broken down and used, will produce sluggish results at best on cellular level.
Think of the body as going through “steps”, like the ABC’s (A to B to C etc). In order for A to become B, it needs cofactors (vitamins/minerals) to move to the next step. If the cofactors are deficient, that step cannot be completed and gets “stuck”. Mitochondria and energy cycles in the body require these vitamins and minerals constantly to continue to work properly and move to the next step. This is a big reason it is important to eat healthy with vegetables and fruits to help fuel our mitochondria; these fruits and vegetables contain the vitamins and minerals needed to produce energy! Ever wonder why bone broth tastes so good when you are sick? It is FULL of minerals!! And when we get good at listening to our body’s signals, we can feel it craving what it actually needs.
Mitochondria are beyond abundant in the body – and some sites have more than others. For instance, the brain, (which requires the most energy in the body) has an estimated 10,000 mitochondria per cell! The liver has about 2000/cell, skeletal muscle about 1500/cell. The more mitochondria, the more energy can be produced. When mitochondria get depleted, we see the disease process begin.
Remember how complicated the definition of mitochondria was? Well, support for those little guys can be much more simple:
Eating a healthy, nutrient dense diet
Sleeping 7-9 hours per night
Managing stress levels
Eliminate toxins blocking the mitochondrial function (bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, heavy metals, xenobiotics, mold, etc)
Certain clinical tests to evaluate function (see below)
Supplementing with what may be deficient, such as minerals and vitamins.
Intermittent fasting has also been shown to help mitochondria
In our office, there are tests like the OATs (organic acids test) that can evaluate parts of mitochondrial function and assess some of the vitamin deficiencies that may be present. Also, routine blood labs to assess inflammation and some organ function are helpful. If needed, we can also go into more specific testing like HTMA (hair tissue mineral analysis) that tests minerals and metals, which are both tied in heavily with mitochondrial function (or dysfunction).
Hopefully this gives you a good baseline of what mitochondria are and why they are important to your health. If you want some help with building up your mitochondria, contact our office to schedule an appointment!