Your Mitochondria Can Reset - Here’s How – Transcript

00:00Mitochondria have soared from something you learned in high school biology to the center of longevity, performance, and conversations about fatigue. Why? Because this little thing that most doctors don't talk about is where our energy comes from. It all comes down to the mitochondria. And if yours are trashed, if they don't work well, you won't work well, either. And this is proven. We know from mounds of research that mitochondrial dysfunction is an

00:26underlying accelerator of cellular aging, muscular fatigue, brain fog, and can even make us more susceptible to diseases and cancers. So, in this video, I'm going to take you through what really matters about mitochondria, so you understand the processes your body needs to have healthy, functional ones.

00:44For the sake of your energy, I'm going to share with you the things that hurt your mitochondria, that keep them stuck in dysfunction, and proven ways to undo all of that. And by the end of this video, you should have a road map, a protocol that helps ensure your mitochondria are tuned up and firing on all cylinders. The protocol comes down to four specific phases. One, stop the sabotage.

01:08Two, take out the trash, force adaptation, and provide your body with the raw materials needed for this whole thing to work right. It sounds simple, but to actually make these four steps work, you can't just follow a checklist.

01:21It helps to understand these powerful factories running inside of you. So, let me explain. Oh, and even though I'm making some bold promises here, please know that I am just a doctor on YouTube sharing my thoughts and fascination on this subject. But I am not your doctor.

01:36This video is educational only, and please talk to your own before starting anything new. So, here's what mitochondria do and how they do it. See, most people think of mitochondria as the generic powerhouse of the cell. But what does that really mean? Well, I want you to think of them as high-voltage, high-powered factories that produce ATP, energy currency, like quarters you feed into a machine. Inside this factory is the electron transport

02:04chain. And hearing this might make you turn your ears off, but listen, it's important. The electron transport chain's whole purpose is to take the food that you eat and the oxygen you breathe, broken down into electrons, and physically pass these electrons down a chain to create an electrical voltage.

02:21That voltage gives the power to create your ATP, the cellular cash that pays for literally every function in your body. Now, I have to back up for a second here and make sure that you understand why the structure of the factory, the physical shape of the mitochondria, is so important for your health. Because the structure can get damaged or fall apart easily. And if that happens, your factories just stall and everything goes wrong. So, here we

02:47go. Mitochondria have a smooth outer membrane. This serves as the door where the cash factory takes in all the supplies it needs and distributes the cash energy out to the rest of the body. It's very important. And then there's the inner mitochondrial membrane. This is where the electron transport chain lives and makes the ATP. This inner membrane is folded up like an accordion

03:13to give your mitochondria as much surface area as possible for more electron transport chains, more factories. Another thing that lives on this inner mitochondrial membrane is a phospholipid called cardiolipin, which helps stabilize and hold the membrane together, like scaffolding. The rest of the free space inside of the mitochondria, centered past the inner mitochondrial membrane, is where things

03:39like NAD get transported and uploaded into the factory. It's also where the DNA of our mitochondria lives. And here's where things can break down. Because mitochondrial DNA lives right next to the factory lines. It's 10 to 100 times more susceptible to damage than the rest of our DNA. While your cell's nucleus is a fortified vault where DNA is wrapped in protective shields called histones, your

04:05mitochondrial DNA is totally naked. It lacks these histone shields entirely, and it sits right next to the exhaust pipe of the electron transport chain. And as your mitochondria produce energy, they naturally leak toxic sparks called reactive oxygen species. And because mitochondrial DNA is situated just nanometers away from this process, it sits directly in a line of fire. And

04:30when those sparks hit naked DNA, they cause breaks in the DNA. And when they hit the inner mitochondrial membrane, cardiolipin can no longer hold the membrane in that folded-up shape. So, the voltage drops, the membrane becomes fragile, and the cell gets poisoned from the inside out. do things to accelerate this all the time. We have modern medicine that throws wrenches directly into these factories. For example, the ever-so-popular statins, while lowering

04:59your cholesterol, accidentally block your body's ability to manufacture CoQ10, literally starving the electron transport chain. Certain antibiotics like ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin can induce severe oxidative breaks in our mitochondrial DNA. And even things like over-the-counter pain relievers can use up glutathione, your main shock absorber for reactive oxygen species. And we can feel this when it happens enough to

05:25accumulate, and we end up with more damaged mitochondria than healthy ones. So, this brings me to the first step in the protocol, which is to stop the sabotage. I won't bore you with too many details here, but really think about how you need to avoid feeding and building your mitochondria with things that sabotage them. When we, and I say we because I need a reminder, too. When we consume ultra-processed foods and things

05:51like refined seed oils and high amounts of sugar, we're actively pouring cheap, dirty fuel into a high-powered engine. I would never do this to my car, so why is it okay to do it to my body? And high amounts of metabolized fructose, which comes from sugary foods, jam up the electron transport chain, causing it to misfire and shoot off little sparks like crazy. And highly processed oxidized fats, well, your body actually incorporates them directly into your

06:19mitochondrial membranes, making them more stiff and rigid than they should be and incredibly prone to breaking. And alcohol is another direct mitochondrial toxin that can poison the matrix and halt ATP production. There are also things other than food that can sabotage your mitochondria. If you're chronically stressed or sleep deprived, you'll make more inflammation than's necessary and your mitochondria will actually turn themselves into defensive factories to

06:46battle the inflammation. So, please prioritize stress management and healthy sleep. And review any medications you take with your doctor and be mindful of how much over-the-counter meds you take, as well. All right, I've made you feel bad enough for today, I think. The next step in our protocol is to take out the trash. This is called mitophagy. Because mitochondria are terrible at repairing their own broken DNA, the body's ultimate survival strategy isn't to fix

07:12broken ones. We scrap them and build new ones. We have a process of clearing out and recycling damaged or senescent mitochondria. Ones that have no purpose, but they sit there spitting out inflammation and taking up room where healthy mitochondria that could be producing clean energy could be. Well, here's what you need to know. We can trigger mitophagy through things that are good for us, but hard to do. Like exercise, cold exposure, saunas can even

07:39help here. And being fasted for several hours or time-restricted eating. Also, we can eat specific polyphenols. Urolithin A, for example, is a metabolite made from certain gut bacteria in our microbiome that can metabolize polyphenols called ellagitannins from things like pomegranates and walnuts. It has incredible clinical data specifically for forcing cells to trigger mitophagy and has been shown to combat symptoms of

08:06muscular aging. But only about a third of people actually harbor the bacteria necessary that can make urolithin A, and the rest of us can't. But we can supplement it, and I think that's pretty cool. I have a link for all of the supplements that I'll be talking about today in the description. Now, as long as the process of mitophagy is working well and we're clearing out the clutter, creating space for healthy mitochondria.

08:29Here's how we actually build them. Step number three. This process is called mitochondrial biogenesis. This is critical because having high amounts of healthy mitochondria creates more energy capacity and also more fatty acid oxidation or making fat available for burning, and building a denser mitochondrial network is quite literally one of the most effective ways to combat

08:54insulin resistance, which is the root cause of so much metabolic dysfunction from things like diabetes and PCOS. And for some of us, it causes the inability to lose weight despite doing everything right. But I'm going to be straight with you. You cannot just take a pill to make this happen. You have to force the body to adapt. This tells your mitochondria to reproduce. To build new mitochondria,

09:19we have to turn on a cellular switch called AMPK. You can think of AMPK as like your body's master fuel sensor. When it senses that you have plenty of energy, it stays quiet and off. But when it senses an energy crisis or low energy, this sounds the alarm and tells yourselves we don't have enough power to survive this, so we need to build more engines or build more mitochondria. So,

09:45how do we ring that alarm? By simulating a crisis. Quite literally, the same things I told you to trigger mitophagy can trigger mitochondrial biogenesis, except for urolithin A. So, these are things like exercise, fasting, or cold or hot exposure. Now, according to research, the exercise that triggers the most mitochondrial biogenesis is high-intensity interval training, short

10:10bursts of intense exercise. But, hear me out. In general, the more muscle you have, the more mitochondria you have, and physically fit people literally have been shown to have up to three times the amount of mitochondria in their muscles than unfit people. And while you might want me to, I'm not just going to gloss over cold exposure. You can do it. When you drop into a cold plunge, you trigger a massive need for adaptation and

10:36mitochondrial biogenesis, apart from many other really cool things. And if you want a link to the cold plunge that I use, it's in the description. On a cellular level, these simulated crises, fasting, intense training, and cold exposure, activate that AMPK pathway.

10:52Now that you know how to force your body to build these new factories, you have to know that keeping them efficient comes down to two things. Do they have the raw materials they need to function well, and is the physical structure healthy? And this is important. What you put into your body matters a lot. And this is also a good time to thank the sponsor of today's video, Element. If you're like me and you exercise a lot or you sweat a lot, I don't know why I'm so sweaty this year, but I am. Or if you're

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