Why Your Mitochondria Hold the Key to Healthy Aging | Thrive on Plants #59

Welcome back to the Thrive on Plants podcast. Most of us learned about mitochondria in high school biology and what we learned that they're the powerhouse of the cell. We learned that and we moved on. My guest today has spent the last 25 years refusing to move on because she understands that what happens inside our mitochondria determine not just how much energy we have today, with how well our brain, our heart, our metabolism, and our muscles are going to hold up for the rest of our lives. Dr. Siobhan Mitchell holds a PhD in neuroscience and has built her career at the intersection of nutrition, brain aging, and cellular biology. She's led clinical research at 3 of the world's largest food companies, directed academic research at Noom, published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers, and holds 8 patents in cognitive enhancement and mood stabilizing nutrition. Dr. Mitchell is currently the Chief Science and Technology Officer at MitoQ. But what I want you to know before we dive in is this: she didn't set out to study mitochondria. She set out to prevent Alzheimer's. Because her grandmother died from it. And after decades of research, she arrived at the same conclusion from many different directions. If you want to protect your brain, your metabolism, your healthspan for the long term, we have to start at the cellular level. We cover a lot of ground today, and I, we probably could have gone deeper and longer, but I wanted to be respectful of the fact that Dr. Mitchell kindly gave time for this conversation on a Saturday morning. We talk about what actually happens to your mitochondria when estrogen declines and why this is not just a hot flash story. It's a metabolic story. We talk about what is happening in the menopausal brain when it starts to struggle with glucose and what you can do about it from a nutritional standpoint. We talk about soy, s-equal, and why only about 25% of women in the West are getting the full benefit of the phytoestrogens they're eating. And we talk about what it means to feed your mitochondria well at any age on the plant-positive diet. This is one of those conversations where I genuinely had more questions at the end than I started with, and I hope you feel the same way. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Siobhan Mitchell. To the Thrive on Plants podcast. Dr. Mitchell, thank you so much for joining me on the Thrive on Plants podcast. I'm really excited to speak with you today.

I'm excited too. I'm really thinking this is going to be a super interesting conversation.

Well, I will— I'll try and keep us on track because I'm certain that we can both go down rabbit holes. But if you wouldn't mind, I have done a lot of investigation of who you are, your background, a little bit of your history, but I'm not sure that you are familiar to the Thrive on Plants community. Do you mind sharing a little bit about yourself?

Yeah, so I am a neuroscientist. I have a PhD in neuroscience and I've spent about 25 years doing research on how nutrition affects the brain. So looking at all kinds of things like Obviously plants, polyphenols, probiotics, omega-3s, different kinds of amino acids, almost anything you can think of that's a nutrient. I have probably done some research on to understand how that can affect brain function, especially in terms of brain aging, cuz that's a special passion of mine. I got into neuroscience because my grandmother died of Alzheimer's and I just thought like, this is something that should never happen to anyone. Mm-hmm. Why isn't there a cure? You know, why have we not figured this out? So this is basically what I devote my life to. And over time it's really clear that having a medication given to you at the late stage of Alzheimer's when you've gotten diagnosed, that's too late. Mm-hmm. So it's really about looking at lifestyle and then obviously nutrition. So done tons of research on that kind of thing, and I can tell you all about omega-3s or curcumin or anything else like that if you like, but The main thing is that over the last, I would say 15 to 20 years, I've become very passionate about mitochondria is the reason why we have so much brain aging. And if we really wanna have a good kind of overall cognitive function as we get to the later years, we have to think about our mitochondria.

Well, first of all, I'm sorry about your grandma. I, you know, I think a lot of us do what we do because of someone we lost who we love. Um, so I, I, I hear that. I don't want to assume that everyone knows what mitochondria are. And so would you give us a science biology 101 on what are mitochondria, what they do, and then from a brain perspective, um, are, is the energy, are the energetics of the brain different than the energetics of other parts of the body?

Hmm, that's a very good question. Yeah. So let me just dive into mitochondria. And I think people do have that recall of mitochondria, that's the powerhouse of the cell and that's, that's about it. So yes, they're the powerhouse of our cells. So what does that mean? So mitochondria are these organelles located within our cells that can take oxygen and all the fuel that we give them, which is the food that we eat, so carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and turn it into ATP. So this energy currency of the cell that allows the cell to do all the functions that make us move, make us think, make us do everything. And so this is where I like to also point out, as soon as I say it's the powerhouse, that there's a little bit of a catch to this. And so the catch is, is that Mitochondria are the most amazing organelles in terms of how much energy they can make. They're amazingly efficient. And that's a problem because basically they're also making oxidative stress.

Mm-hmm.

At the same time they're making this ATP. So we kind of did a little bit of a trade-off in evolution at some point when we were like single-celled organisms in getting this mitochondrial function that can make ATP much faster than any other kind of way that has been known in biology. But we need to use oxygen to do that, and we need to break apart oxygen and move around these, these electrons to make this energy. I'm not gonna go through all the specifics cuz it, it gets pretty technical. But the main thing to remember is that breaking apart this oxygen, moving around these electrons can cause free radicals. And free radicals are these damaging molecules that can go out into the mitochondria and basically break other parts of the mitochondria and also break other parts of the cell. So these free radicals are basically these kind of hungry electrons that are trying to join onto something else so they can break our DNA, they can break our proteins, they can disrupt our membranes of our cells and our mitochondria. So this is, I think, one of these situations of, yeah, we need them to be able to have the huge amounts of energy that takes to run our brains, our muscles. But when we're doing anything, making all this energy, we're also making oxidative stress. The good news is, is that when we're young, we have these kind of endogenous systems in our mitochondria, these antioxidant systems that can quench all those free radicals. So we keep those free radicals in balance. But as we get older, the system breaks down. We're not as able to just handle all that oxidative stress when we need to. And so more damage occurs. You can imagine more damage to our DNA, more damage to our proteins. Cells are gonna start to die. Cells are gonna start to dysfunction. And we end up with these diseases of aging that we know so well. So diabetes, cardiovascular disease. Neurological disease like Alzheimer's. Oh, and so then you asked me, nope, you asked me about the brain in terms of why that might be another kind of area where mitochondria are especially important. And this is so true because the brain is the most energy-hungry organ of our bodies. So I think probably some of you have heard that. Even though it's maybe 3% of our body weight, the brain's actually using about 20% of our energy. Mm-hmm. And even just keeping a neuron active, like in balance, is actually taking a huge amount of ATP because it's kind of maintaining electric potential all the time. So your brain at rest doing nothing is actually taking up a lot of energy. And we can understand this by thinking about how, yeah, you can have basically maybe like a minute or two of no blood flow or oxygen to the brain. And then after that starts dying, it doesn't work anymore. It's irrevocable. Most other organs don't have that kind of same sort of moment of like, all right, you know, there's no turning back after we lose, you know, this much sort of energy supply. But the brain needs a lot of energy all the time. And just to kind of also point out one more thing that about mitochondria that's interesting to realize is that Mitochondria, because they're so important for making this energy, have also evolved to kind of be, I would say, the master regulators of energy in terms of how the cell uses energy. So for instance, if the brain starts to say, hey, I'm, I'm not getting as much energy, the mitochondria is the thing that will kind of send stress signals and tell the rest of the cell like something bad is happening. And when it sends these stress signals, it can start to have like an immune reaction, for instance. So a lot of the inflammation that we often see during aging, which I think, I, I think some people have heard of the term inflammaging. Mm-hmm. Is basically how as we age, we get more and more inflammation in our bodies. This is really where that inflammation could be just mitochondria sending stress signals again and again because it's not getting the right nutrients. And this happens more and more as we get older and our blood vessels break down. I'm gonna talk a lot about the brain, so I'll stop there. But that's, that's I think what is really important about understanding the brain is just this need for energy and also it's, it's delicacy. Like it's a very delicate organ.

I mean, the, it's funny cuz when you were describing that, I was thinking of a high-performance car. That, you know, when it's really revving up, it's creating lots of exhaust and that exhaust is essentially toxic. So the higher, the more revved up that car is, the more toxic byproducts that are being created. But when you're, I mean, the other reason the brain is fascinating, and I'll try and ask these questions one at a time. For myself, for example, going through perimenopause and menopause, I feel like there— what I'm hearing you say is that there are multiple inputs that are impacting our brain health and how the energetics of our brain change over time. So early in life, we have a buffer, which we lose as we, you know, probably at some point, I don't know, 30s or 40s, we become less able to buffer those reactive oxygen species, you know, those energetic byproducts that are essentially causing us to become inflamed and age. How does that intersect? I think my first question is, how does that intersect with what's happening as women's brains age, secondary to hormone loss? And in particular, looking at the intersection of mitochondrial function and estrogen?

Oh yeah, this is a really interesting question because this is something that I think really only started to be truly understood even like 10, 15 years ago. But this is something that is often ignored because I think most of the time research has been focusing on men and male models. So this has not been appreciated as much. And so. Yeah, let's, let's get into it. So let's start with estrogen and mitochondria. So estrogen is actually a very important mediator of mitochondrial function. And if you think about it, it makes sense because just described mitochondria are these sort of energy producers of our cells. And women have a special job of having pregnancy and creating another human being and in order to do this, you need to have a lot of energy being used in the most appropriate way. So estrogen over time has been this kind of mediator of like, all right, let's use energy for this kind of thing, like growth of a new baby. And so it can make mitochondria, for instance, replicate faster. So if you could imagine more estrogen in your system can kind of tell the rest of your body, especially your reproductive organs, How do you— let's make more of us. Let's make more mitochondria and make more energy. So estrogen can make a lot more mitochondria and at the same time, estrogen can help us make more of these antioxidants that we'll need when we start making more energy. So estrogen is basically telling the body, hey, we're gonna use a lot of energy soon. We're gonna need even more antioxidants to keep everything. At a stable level. Mm-hmm. Additionally, estrogen is also really good at telling our bodies to use fat. So fat is a special product that women really get to use better than men. Isn't that interesting? I think this is really fascinating cuz most of the time people are saying, ah, it's so annoying that we have so much more fat than men. It's a good thing in the sense that we are actually mobilizing fat much better than men. And we can actually take that fat and put it into our mitochondria and make energy in a more effective way than men. But this is through estrogen. So then you're starting to imagine what is happening when estrogen declines during menopause. And the main thing is that all those nice things that it's doing for our mitochondria start to go away, and that can affect how our body functions. And so. Let's sort of break down some of these things. Like for instance, even just using fat, like I just described, when we lose estrogen, we start to not be able to mobilize fat as well. So it sticks on our body more. I mean, a lot of women, and this has actually been clinically studied, do gain about 5 to 10 pounds during perimenopause. Like that is real and, and it is because your metabolism in terms of fat is slowing down your mitochondria, not using that fat as well. So now it's sticking not only in our hips, but also places like our belly, like our belly fat, which most of the time women don't really notice in their twenties and their thirties. And then it starts to develop. And this is because, this is because once we lose estrogen, this is, this is basically allowing fat to accumulate. More around our organs. So basically belly fat is fat that is kind of covering our stomach and our liver, and it's actually a very inflammatory kind of dangerous fat to have, which is more like men. Men also have this kind of fat. Like everyone knows the guy with the beer gut. This is kind of how they accumulate fat. And this is where, yeah, this is because estrogen, once we start to lose it, can't kind of tell that kind of body fat, that sort of internal organ fat to go away as fast. And interestingly, that belly fat is also basically another source of estrogen for us as we start to decline estrogen. So it's another way for the body to kind of, oh, you know, we're losing estrogen. Let's get a little bit more through making it in our belly. So the So yeah, that's a problem, but then there's other problems in terms of mitochondria helping with glucose transport into our cells. Mm-hmm. So once you lose estrogen, you're not having as good glucose sort of transport into your muscles, and now it's just swimming around in your body and starting to have more negative effects. Like for instance, predisposing you towards diabetes. And then additionally, because we're not having as many mitochondria being made because of estrogen. We are now having problems, for instance, with our muscles. So we start to lose lean mass, especially during perimenopause. Mm-hmm. So we're now tired more easily. Our muscles are getting smaller unless we're really working out all the time. So we're fighting a lot of battles once we lose estrogen. And I haven't even started talking about the hot flashes and the usual menopause symptoms. I could go into that and what those can mean, which are very interesting itself, but I'll just leave it there.

Well, that you just said quite a bit. And I wouldn't mind going into the hot flashes, but first, and correct me if I'm wrong, what I hear, what I think I hear you saying is that the mitochondria play a role in our metabolic flexibility and Estrogen is also key in supporting our ability to use glucose in particular. So that is that as estrogen declines and also, so our mitochondria aren't dividing as frequently or often, they're not getting the signal for how to use the fat or how to use the glucose. So all of this is probably contributing to our insulin resistance that's occurring, that may occur in someone in women as they're going through menopause, is, does that translate into, I mean, over the past maybe 5 or 10 years, occasionally I hear the phrase type 3 diabetes when you're thinking about Alzheimer's, is, do those align in terms of the lack of metabolic flexibility in your brain? Contributing to some of those changes that either lead to mild cognitive impairment along the spectrum to Alzheimer's?

Yes, this is, this is really interesting. And this is, I think, work that has not been appreciated as much. And the main researchers who have found all this out are, for instance, Roberta Brinton, who is at University of Arizona. Mm-hmm. She started to do a lot of research first on animal models about if you lose estrogen, if you take away estrogen from an animal model, what is happening to mitochondria? And she was one of the first to sort of see all these issues with mitochondria now starting dysfunction, not making as much energy, not using glucose as well. And she thought, well, all right, that's going to be really important for the brain. Cause we just talked about how energy hungry it is for the brain to, to kind of need all that ATP being made perfectly and all the rest. So she started looking at the brain function of these animals and she saw that there were a lot of cognitive issues. There are a lot of mood issues and yeah, very similar to like what we just discussed. They were not using glucose as well. It really is like a diabetes of the brain. And so what was interesting was then she thought like, all right, this is like obviously a problem. Let's start to look at this in women. So she started looking at this in women and she teamed up with Lisa Mosconi, who I think you've, you've heard of. She's, I think, a really seminal person in terms of understanding how human female brains are functioning during this time. And what they saw together was that these brains are starting to lose white matter, especially during perimenopause. And what is white matter? So White matter is this basic insulation, this fatty insulation around all our neurons that help our neurons signal faster. So basically they're kind of like a way to make the neurons be able to have a signal go from one end to the next at a really fast rate. So this fatty kind of tissue, this white matter, it's called myelin, is really important. And she saw that these women were actually losing some white matter during this kind of time of when their estrogen starts to dip. And she really understood that this could be a sign of perhaps that these women are going to be more inclined toward Alzheimer's. So she looked at, for instance, who are the people that are showing this white matter were, you know, kind of going down it more. And she saw that the white matter was going down more in women with APOE4. And APOE4 is this gene. It's sort of one of the best known Alzheimer's genes that once again raises our risk of getting Alzheimer's quite a bit. About 25% of people in the US have this gene. So it's quite a problem. And I definitely suggest everyone go find out whether they have APOE4, cuz even though it sounds scary, like you should know now because there's stuff you can do.

Exactly.

We can talk about that, you know, as we, we get into things. But what she saw was that also women who are having a lot of hot flashes or a lot of having night sweats were also showing white matter deterioration more. And at the same time, when she was looking at this white matter deterioration, she saw that these women were also having more brain fog, more cognitive issues, which makes sense because as I said, now you're brain signaling is going a little slower. It's, it's not as efficient. It's not as fast. So why is this happening? Why is white matter disappearing? What Roberta Brinton really postulated was that what's happening is when you get that diabetes of the brain, that less glucose being used. So glucose is going into the brain, but it's just not getting absorbed into our neurons and our, our glia, which are these support cells. What else can they use? What else can these neurons use for fuel? They're very good at also using, you know, fats and ketones. So this is where the brain just turns to the easiest thing that's around, which is the white matter. So white matter starts to get broken down to be used as fuel for these starving neurons. So yeah, that's, that's a sort of understanding of like how serious it can get during this stage. And I really think about. Perimenopause is this, this window of opportunity, but this window of danger. So these changes are happening in our brain, but if we can kind of plan things well, if we can notice these symptoms like these hot flashes, these night sweats, do something about them early, we can preserve a lot of function for the long term.

That I'm, I have, I was not familiar with Roberta Brinton, but I will definitely go look at her work.

Oh yeah.

Because that's really fascinating. If you're a woman in her 30s, um, we're, you know, we're all going to be blessed to go through perimenopause if we live long enough. What can or should you be doing? I mean, I guess part of the question, and again, multiple questions, um, what can we do proactively to mitigate some of these changes? And then I know sometimes I hear from some women that, oh, I've never had a hot flash or I've never had a night sweat, but it doesn't mean that their brain energetics aren't changing. That at least I, I know that's true, that they are changing.

Yeah. But just, you know, who are having the most serious changes, I think I just want to highlight those. Yeah.

So what I always like to make sure that we're actionable. I don't want people to hear this and say, oh yeah, I know it sounds scary. My brain is dying. Although sometimes I have felt that like that, but what knowing what we know now, what can we do differently?

Yeah. And so let me just start off by saying like, it sounds scary. Like my brain is dying, but it's also clear that you can actually get that white matter back. As you go into post-menopause. Mm-hmm. And I think this is something where like, it's a really interesting area of research. We're still understanding who are these women that get a lot of it back? Like what is it that they're doing right? And so yeah, let's go into that. So, and these are all just basic ideas right now. Like it's not like a clinically shown thing, though I will say it's very interesting. Roberta Brinton herself is working on a combination of phytoestrogens and to kind of explain what a phytoestrogen is. It's a plant molecule that looks a little bit like estrogen, not exactly, but enough that it can activate the same kinds of estrogen receptors and have the same kind of estrogen activity, which can be very important as we start to lose estrogen, that you can kind of gain it back through taking some of these phytoestrogens. So she looked at a combination of phytoestrogens, mainly from soy. So daidzine, genistein, and, and equol. So equol is actually a metabolite of soy that is made in your microbiome. And she saw that this could actually bring back a lot of these dysfunctions that I just talked about. This is a big study that is going on right now. So she just has some initial results, but the initial results seem to indicate that not only can this help with the hot flashes and the night sweats and all those kind of general menopause symptoms, but also can help with cognition, especially in those women who are showing like the most issues with their brain function with, yeah, the white matter kind of hyperintensities. That's, that's the term they use when the white matter starts to deteriorate. Mm-hmm. So for sure, I think there's a lot of now very interesting data being collected right now on phytoestrogens being very important to keep your brain function. So yeah, and people are always like, oh, I, I hear soy is maybe not so safe, but I wanna tell everyone soy is safe. It is really a great, like actually I would say like nutritionally ideal food in terms of it's got so much protein, it's got all these phytoestrogens, it's got all these nutrients. Yeah. And yeah, stay away from GMO if you're worried about that. But soy in itself is not going to do anything harmful to your health. It's not gonna cause any cardiovascular issues or anything else like I keep on having these people say that they've heard bad things about soy. I'm like, that it's not true. It's thousands of years of women in Asia eating tons of soy and actually showing better health for it. So that's one thing you can do. I, I would also like to point out that we are also understanding that if you can't use glucose in your brain, especially these, these moments during perimenopause, why not add healthy fats to your diet? So I have myself done research, for instance, on looking at medium-chain triglycerides from things like coconut oil. I will say that coconut oil doesn't have a lot of medium-chain triglycerides, but it's one of the best sort of natural sources. You can also just get medium-chain triglycerides. Mm-hmm. And this is usually called caprylic acid or octanoic acid at a store, you know, at a sort of GNC or kind of like any supplement store. And I have shown at least in rodent models that this can be very beneficial for brain function that is especially starting to have that problems with using glucose. So this has been also shown in a lot of clinical studies as well too, that subjects that are in that kind of first stages of Alzheimer's called mild cognitive impairment. Mm-hmm. And they take medium chain triglycerides, they can actually get back a lot of their cognition because now they have an alternate fuel source. So that's another thing to consider. And then I'll, I'll throw in a few more just to kind of give people a lot of, a lot of opportunities. The other ones are looking at, for instance, the way that you can restore the white matter. So there's a lot of interesting kinds of nutrients that help preserve white matter in your brain, that kind of fatty insulation. So I'll just name a few. So. Phosphatidylcholine or phosphatidylserine are very important for that white matter. So having more of that in your diet, and then also omega-3s. So DHA, EPA, you can get it from fish oil, but you can also get it from plant sources, which I like to always point out cuz people don't always understand that. Um, there's lots of algae, kind of DHA supplements out there. Or you can have omega-3s from things like walnuts or, you know, linseed, something like, something like that as well.

And those are, I love that you tied it back to food and, um, you know, things that we have agency over in terms of, cuz the food isn't just going to help with your brain health, it's gonna help with your overall health. But you mentioned in passing something that I wanted to dig into a little bit because many women— I won't say many women, at least some women in our community are familiar with the WAVE study where, um, Dr. Hanna-Kalehova and Dr. Bernard actually showed that that half cup of soybeans may help mitigate some of the vasomotor symptoms that occur during perimenopause and menopause, but not all women respond. And so I, I am assuming that goes back to your comment about the S equal or the equal. And based on what you know today in terms of the benefits of soy for supporting brain health and brain energetics throughout the lifespan of a woman, is there anything One, how do I know if I make equal? Um, and two, if I, how do I, maybe, maybe the question really is how do we increase the number of women who can benefit from soy as either part of their diet or taking the active ingredients independently or finding a way to boost their microbiome so that they can become producers? That was a lot.

Sorry. Yeah, no, that, those are, those are all great questions. Yeah. So I'll just start off with saying yes, soy has these phytoestrogens, daidzene and genistein. That's our main phytoestrogens in soy. And so there was a lot of understanding like 15, 20 years ago that these phytoestrogens could hit these estrogen receptors and perhaps take the place of estrogen. So there's a lot of excitement and there's a lot of studies being done, as you say, looking at soy. And sometimes there were some good results, especially if it was in Asian populations. Sometimes the results were kind of middling, which can happen a lot in nutrition studies, but it was very puzzling. So like, what is going on that some people just don't respond as well to a soy intervention for not only hot flashes, but to improve cardiovascular health, to improve cognitive health, to improve, um, like I would say metabolic health, including blood glucose. So just, yeah, these really up and down results, very, very mysterious. So then it was started to be understood that genistein and daidzine, even though they're, they're great at hitting estrogen, they're actually not very bioavailable. So you can eat a ton of soy and most of it will not be getting into your bloodstream. But they started to understand that daidzene can be turned into S-école. So like a much more potent phytoestrogen that is also much more bioavailable. So it can get into your, your gut wall, into your bloodstream easier.

Mm-hmm.

And also can stay in your body a lot longer so it can have a lot stronger estrogen effect. This S-école. Was great, but it seemed to be only in maybe about 20 to 25% of women in the West. So the US could make it. So this was really interesting because it just became really clear that our microbiomes are very important for how well we can use these nutrients, how well this food can really be this powerful advocate for our bodies. So this is where S has now been studied much more extensively. So they've started to look at when you just give S-sequel as a supplement, you know, just in itself to women who can't make S-sequel, you can get all sorts of benefits. Not only with, yeah, once again, the menopause symptoms, the hot flashes, but cardiovascular health, sort of cardio flexibility, improving blood glucose, and also even improving just things like skin. I haven't even talked about how estrogen's really important for our skin. Interesting. Interesting. Super important. So yeah, like all that elasticity that we love, you know, that is really important to, to making us look great. Like that is estrogen basically telling our skin to, you know, make more collagen. Also have our mitochondria run better to kind of, yeah, make more plump skin cells. Anyway, so see, I'm, I'm divulging already.

People putting Equal on their skin soon.

Yeah. Like what I care about is my skin. No, I care about it all. I really, I really do. But then, yeah, I would say the real mystery then was what is about these women's microbiomes that make it so they can get the S. equal benefits of which there are many. Like I could even tell you studies where they looked at S. equal and like telomere length and saw that telomeres, which are kind of like, I would say the replicative capacity of our cells, like how much we can make our cells grow and divide again and again. Like this can be improved by S equal. Very also important for mitochondria function. So S equal has a lot of benefits for mitochondria, which I can go into, but you're probably like, hey, wait, what, what is it that you can do to make more? They did a lot of studies looking at, for instance, whether you can just give women a lot of soy milk and then maybe that would make it so that they're all now gonna make S equal. And this worked kind of like somewhat. So some women started to develop that capacity, but not really. When they looked at observational studies of women who are having, you know, a lot of squalene production, they saw they're drinking more green tea, for instance.

Mm-hmm.

And they're having a lot more fruits and vegetables and a lot more fiber, which makes sense because if you think about it, what we really need is we really need a lot of fuel for the microbiome to kind of work properly. And the best fuel is fiber and these polyphenols from fruit and vegetables. Bless you. And then, thank you. And then they really actually start to look at, you know, what are the sort of components of the microbiome that seem most important? So they saw that the Bifidus bacteria, these are bacteria that are often found in yogurt, for instance, are really great at starting to do the initial steps of making S equal. So we definitely need more of Bifidus. So be long them, be brave. And what they also saw was that women, when they go through menopause, start to lose that kind of microbiome. They start to lose their Bifidus microbiome. So that's another, I would say, really strong hint to people is like, definitely try to increase your intake of things like yogurt, things with these kind of bifidus bacteria. And so yeah, that's, that's the other way to kind of get your body to have more S-equal. And then lastly, I'll just also point out that they saw much more S-equal production if you were a complete vegetarian. So that's the other secret. Something about meat, I guess, makes it so that, yeah, the microbiome is not as able to do that.

Wow. That is a lot. Um, and as you explain that, it makes sense, but the, so one thing we didn't talk about, um, one, does the equal actually cross the blood-brain barrier? Um, so I feel like there's a couple of barriers that may and this probably applies to multiple molecules, whether you're thinking equal, whether you're thinking omegas, um, in, in focusing on the brain, although this applies probably to other organs in the body in terms of biological aging, but how does it get, how does it cross the blood-brain barrier if it does? And then this also You know, question I struggle with when you hear about a lot of these chemicals or supplements that people are talking about, many of them don't get into the mitochondria. And I don't know if that's a necessary prerequisite for them to be effective. So how do they get to the active source? And then this may be a question we don't know yet, but is there a dose response? Effect in terms of if I, if I eat soy once a week versus many women in the West or in the East are probably eating soy with every meal. So sorry, that was 3 questions again.

Yeah, it's a lot of questions. Okay. You'll have to remind me if I forget to answer one of the questions.

My brain, you're making my brain go too fast.

Oh no, no, no. It's great. So yeah. So blood-brain barrier. Yeah. This is, a huge thing. And I can tell you, I have spent decades trying to understand like what is getting into the brain, because just to kind of give everyone the same sort of understanding of what's happening, that the brain is, as I've said, the brain is a very delicate organ. It, it can go wrong in so many different ways. So we have this blood-brain barrier, which is a special kind of protective barrier that makes sure that only things that we really need to get into the brain get into the brain. Yep. And so this is where a lot of the stuff that we think would be beneficial for the brain are not gonna get into the brain. And I have spent years trying to understand like, okay, polyphenols, like they're really good for us. Quercetin. I don't know if people have heard of quercetin. That's really good for us. Mm-hmm. Not getting into the brain very easily. Interesting. But S-qual does get into the brain. And actually sometimes when I, talk about polyphenols, I, I have to tell people like, all right, so the polyphenol you're eating is probably not the thing that's getting into your body or your brain. It's these metabolites. So I just talked about sequal as one metabolite, but there are so many metabolites of polyphenols that are really important for brain function. And I'll just give you one example. So a lot of polyphenols, when they get broken down by our microbiome, are turned into these molecules that look a lot like neurotransmitters, and they actually look like, like the metabolites. They are the metabolites of neurotransmitters. Mm-hmm. So there's a lot of understanding now that having these kind of, I would say, sort of lookalikes of neurotransmitters like serotonin, like dopamine, when they get made by your microbiome, they can actually travel inside your body and go into your brain and basically stimulate more neurotransmitter production. Which can have an antidepressant effect. So, so I think that's kind of cool that once again, it's showing how important the microbiome is, having a good microbiome, that you can actually have more antidepressant effects from polyphenols. And I actually spent a lot of time looking at mood and stuff you can eat. You know, for instance, I've looked at things like theobromine and how it can affect mood. That's this active in chocolate, for instance. Chocolate. I know that's like, you know, that people say like, oh, chocolate. Yeah. That's like a wives' tale that improves your mood. Actually, it's not. It really It does. Yeah. So, so yeah. So I think that's just one of these, these interesting asides, but, um, oh my gosh, what was the second part of the question that you wanted?

How does it, so it gets into the blood-brain barrier, but does it need to get into the mitochondria?

Mitochondria. Yeah. So it doesn't always need to get in the mitochondria cuz its main job is just to hit those estrogen receptors that are on the mitochondria. But I do think it's a good point that you made that a lot of things that we're told are helping our mitochondria are not getting in our mitochondria at all. And mitochondria is kind of interesting. It's almost the same situation as the brain. The mitochondria are also a very protected part of ourselves. So it's really hard to get stuff into the mitochondria. Got these special transport systems that only allow yeah, these basic nutrients like vitamin C and obviously, you know, carbs and proteins and stuff inside. But, um, I would say when we look at the mitochondria and we want to affect it to have the best brain aging or the best, you know, overall healthy aging, it is important to think about what can get into the mitochondria. So that's one of the reasons why I work for the company I do right now, which makes this molecule called MitoQ, which was developed basically to get into the mitochondria at very high levels. 'Cause yeah, I can tell you when I started working in this field, there's so much interest in the mitochondria is the best way to improve our lifespans because so many of the different kinds of molecules that have been shown to improve lifespan in, for instance, mice have been shown to be mitochondrial molecules, stuff that really affects mitochondrial function. And the best intervention we have of lifespan of anything is calorie restriction. And calorie restriction goes down to the same idea of like, what is calorie restriction basically doing? It's basically adapting our mitochondria to be very efficient at energy use. And when mitochondria are very efficient at energy use, you get a longer lifespan. And most of the molecules that they've looked at that also do the same thing are also just making our mitochondria work better as well. So yeah.

Oh gosh, you just created a whole nother series of questions. But one other, going back to the S-EQUAL, is there a dose-response relationship that has been identified? I mean, because the, one of the things I see, especially in the West, is more is better. But is there a minimum effective dose in terms of how much I should be adding to my diet or how often I should be eating soy to derive any significant benefit?

Yeah, no, that's a great question. So in terms of like, is there an upper limit to sequal? I don't know if anyone's really looked at that. The main doses people have used, you know, as a supplement have been about 10 milligrams, 20 milligrams. So at 10 milligrams, we, we do see improvements in the menopausal symptoms and the metabolic health. So we know that that can be effective.

Mm-hmm.

People haven't really looked at much more above the 20 milligrams. In terms of when we look at women that seem to be getting a lot of the benefits of making as sequel and how much tofu and, you know, soy they're eating, they're eating about 30 to 40 milligrams of phytoestrogens a day. And so that's maybe about, yeah, like 2 cups of soy milk or a cup of tofu, that kind of thing. In, in comparison, in the West, in America, I think we maybe get like 2 milligrams of phytoestrogens from soy a day. Cuz yeah, like we don't eat that much.. But I would say if people can manage to have, yeah, like, you know, a cup of soy milk, a serving of edamame. So soybeans like that is probably enough to kind of stimulate the right amount of S equal to have these same benefits that, you know, I just talked about from the supplements. So I think somewhere around there and totally agree with you, like more is not more, like this is. So important because this is where even mitochondria sort of studies when they were trying to do this kind of understanding of like, all right, we really want our mitochondria to work perfectly. Let's give people a huge amount of vitamin C or a huge amount of vitamin E, which these are both very important mitochondrial antioxidants. They actually saw that it could worsen mitochondrial function. Yeah. So you don't wanna overload. Mitochondria with too many antioxidants, like a little bit of oxidative stress is actually useful for signaling, but just, yeah, like this is where you do need to have especially more vitamin C and vitamin E as you age. And this is another thing that I think women out there should know about is that as you age, your ability to absorb nutrients goes down. Yeah. And so you need to eat more than you think you do. And which is a problem cuz I think when we get, yeah, especially in the older ages of like past 60s, we usually eat less.

Mm-hmm.

Don't even get me started on GLP-1 agonists these days and how I think I read somewhere like 1 in 8 people in America are on a GLP-1 agonist.

I think that's what I heard too.

How many nutrient deficiencies they're experiencing because of that. So yeah, so that's the main thing I also wanna tell people. It's like, you think you're getting enough B12. Maybe you are in terms of what you're eating, but your microbiome has changed and now you're not getting enough absorption and now you need to do something about it and eat even more. So yeah.

And Siobhan, those are your— that's a key message. What you're eating doesn't necessarily translate into what your body's absorbing. And that can be impacted by the health of your microbiome. So adding in those polyphenols, your colored, you know, your brightly colored vegetables, making sure you're getting fiber. I tend to push it on my, you know, in my community to say 40 to 50 grams. Don't go from standard American to 40 to 50, but fiber is fuel for your microbiome. And I'm glad that you shared about the yogurt and the B. brevi and the B. longum. Because you can get, whether you're plant-based or not, you can find a yogurt with live cultures that should be able to help support your microbiome health, especially if our microbiome is having age-related changes, which are then impacting our absorption anyways.

Oh yeah. Yeah. So thank you for pointing out that not all yogurt has actual active probiotics. I find that so shocking. I mean, I worked for a yogurt company and I was amazed how much like that's not understood that like most of the yogurt you're eating is just dead. So it's dead.

Yeah.

I just, I wanna say one more thing about vitamin C. Sure. Because I think this is sort of interesting cuz I, I kind of ragged on a little bit like, oh, vitamin C, too much of it can be harmful. But I will say that because it's a water-soluble molecule, like it's something that your body can't store very well. And a lot of people miss their sort of daily component of vitamin C in terms of, you know, like, oh, they didn't eat that many fruits or vegetables today and their vitamin C goes down. So just a day or two of less vitamin C can have a real detriment on your health. And, and interestingly, even, um, There's a recent study I was, I was looking at where people who are depleted of vitamin C, so they're just a little bit mildly deficient, they could not oxidize fat as well when they exercise. So literally their mitochondrial function went down. And when they're given vitamin C, just kind of, you know, nice dose to kind of bring it back up to normal, they were suddenly able to use fat more. And this actually equated for like a 100-kilo person. Is like 200 calories of more fat that they could then use and then, you know, get some benefits of body composition. So if women are looking at why, why am I not losing the fat that I wanted to during exercise? Just look at your vitamin C consumption. That's a really basic one, but it is very important.

But it's also a reminder, you know, it's something that we, we've talked about in our community when it comes to, we're seeing more women on GLP-1s and there's a short-term and a long-term impact. And yes, the, you know, GLP-1s have been in use for the GLP-1 receptor agonists have been in use for a long time, but I do wanna make sure that women understand that while their appetite is decreasing, they need to pay attention to their core RDI, because it's not just, I mean, your body still needs energy to do all of these processes. And if aging is really tied to cellular energy, that becomes even more important.

Oh, totally. Yeah. And this is where I feel like people are so thrilled that they can go through the whole day without eating because of the GLP-1. I'm like, really not a good idea. Like you are really missing out. And I know people are also thinking like, oh, I'll just take a handful of supplements. But yeah, once again, like you really need to get these nutrients from food. This is something that I've always been surprised that people don't realize that the matrix of what you're eating is actually very important for absorption. Yeah, you probably have this discussion a lot with people that, that you talk to, but it cannot be said enough that for instance, you know, all those fat soluble vitamins. Vitamins that, you know, are very important that, you know, vitamin D for instance, you need to eat them with fat. You know, if you're not gonna eat them with fat, you're not gonna get as good absorption. Yeah. I did a lot of research in all these polyphenols too, and a lot of these can be beneficial only if you're having them with fat, like curcumin, which is amazing for the brain. It's not gonna go anywhere unless you're having it with a decent amount of fat at the same time. So yeah.

Anyone listening who's taking their turmeric on an empty stomach.

I know it's going nowhere. I know. It's, yeah.

So I'm certain someone's going to ask, how do I know if my mitochondria are healthy? Is there a test? Or, I mean, we talk, I know there's a lot of conversation now about inflammaging and systemic inflammation and looking at your SED rate or looking at your high sensitivity C-reactive protein, but do these directly correlate with mitochondrial health or is there something else that we should be looking at?

Oh yeah. This is so interesting to me right now because I think people don't want to acknowledge their mitochondria because they can't test them. So they, they focus on obviously what the doctor does, which is cholesterol, things like that. These are important for sure. But I, I always tell people like, these might be just kind of like the end products of mitochondrial dysfunction. Wouldn't it be great if you actually hit mitochondrial dysfunction? And for instance, I was just reading a paper about how a lot of heart disease is treated by looking at cholesterol, looking at, you know, all sorts of things that happen that can relate to cardiovascular, you know, progression, but. In the end, a lot of cardiovascular disease is being caused cuz your mitochondria in your vasculature are failing and it allows cholesterol to then hurt your arteries and, you know, build up in terms of, you know, arterial calcification. So it's sort of like if you focus on your mitochondria first, you actually might be able to avoid a lot of these cardiovascular diseases. But yeah, that's not the question you're asking. So the main ways that I tell people to first notice your mitochondria is like, are you getting fatigued when you shouldn't be fatigued? Like, so if you are, yeah. As we just discussed getting all the right nutrients that can affect fatigue, like iron, B12, and those are all fine, but you're still fatigued. That could be a sign of mitochondrial dysfunction. And this is really well illustrated by people with mitochondrial diseases and There are a lot of people out there with mitochondrial diseases. It's kind of surprising cuz there's what's called primary mitochondrial disease, which is you're born with a mutation in mitochondria genes, or you are someone that's acquired mutations as you get older. And that's secondary mitochondrial disease. And that is, I think, a whole unknown world that we need to focus on of people who have secondary mitochondrial disease. They have these mutations that make it so they're mitochondria are not working as well, and this brings on fatigue that is unexplained by anything else that you're doing. So yeah. And then you might go like, oh, it's a mutation. How are we gonna get it to work better? Well, there are ways to make your mitochondria work better even with a mutation, like things like MitoQ that can help with the oxidative stress that starts to build up with these mutations. And also help with the downstream effects of things like, you know, poor blood glucose control, that kind of thing. So something to just think about. But just getting back to the mitochondria measurement, if you do wanna think about actual sort of concrete measurements besides fatigue or even brain fog, so those energy-hungry organs, obviously the first to suffer when you have mitochondrial dysfunction, like your brain won't work as well, your muscles won't allow you to exercise as well. Okay. The other things that I would point out are things like looking at anything cardiovascular. So as I said, mitochondria at the heart of cardiovascular progression. So heart rate variability I think is really interesting to look at to kind of get a sense of mitochondrial dysfunction.

Okay.

There are a lot of inflammatory markers, like I agree CRP can be an indication cuz Yeah, more and more understanding of how mitochondria basically direct our immune system is really being understood. So if you have distressed mitochondria, you will have all that inflammation building up. If you can calm your mitochondria down, you can get rid of a lot of the inflammation. And we're especially seeing that with the autoimmune diseases that are building up these days, like long COVID, like lupus. So yeah, that's, those are all I would say very interesting in terms of how mitochondria dysfunction starts to go wrong and how you can fix some of those symptoms with a good mitochondria therapeutic. Anyway, the, the last I'll just sort of point out to you is a few of the newer markers. So one marker that's very interesting right now is something called GDF-15, and this is something you can get if you ask your doctor to do a, a lab result for you. It's just not commonly used because it's one of those ones that's not done for diagnosis purposes. Mm-hmm. But it's very important for a lot of progression of diseases like liver disease, heart disease, like GDF-15 goes up in all of these. If you have high GDF-15, that means you have more risk for neurological disease. And really what GDF-15 is doing is it's basically showing mitochondrial distress. So GDF-15 starts to build up. When your mitochondria are stressed out and are trying to, to calm down. So that's an interesting one that I'm just telling anyone I can, I can think of, like, you know, keep an eye on that. That is, that is very fascinating to understand that one better. And then lastly, I think there's a lot of new research coming out on these new tests that you can get that actually look at your mitochondrial function, kind of put your blood on a little spot card, or you get some saliva from, yeah, your cheek and you can then send away and see everything about your mitochondrial function. Those are a little pricey. So it's sort of like if I, if I were, if I were someone that's just fascinated by mitochondria, I might do it, but I would probably say it's most useful if you really feel like you are experiencing fatigue or trouble focusing or can't exercise as well and you can't figure out anything else that's going wrong.

Though, so I have, I'm not familiar with GDF-15, so I know where I'm gonna be doing my next studies. That's a fascinating one. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. And I would say just also think about your mitochondria sort of diet. I mean, I, I, I don't often talk about this cuz I feel like it's too early to say a mitochondria diet, but I, no, no, let's go there. It's, it's good to just point out what I think mitochondria need. So mitochondria need a lot of B vitamins. Mm-hmm. And the B vitamins are very important for this part of mitochondrial function called the TCA cycle. It kind of prepares sort of energy substrates from things like glucose for the mitochondria to use. So if we don't have any of those main B vitamins like folate, B12, B6, like we will not have as good mitochondria. The other ones of course are the, the vitamin C, which I just pointed out. Vitamin C is like an unknown, or at least I'd say underappreciated meteor of mitochondrial function. And then also vitamin D. But then I would say lastly, this is, this is always interesting for people to hear is that mitochondria do need fat as well too. So I think what's really fascinating is the ability to have mitochondria run more cleanly when they get things like, I would say the healthy fats. So stuff from like avocados.

Non-native speakers.

Or if you wanna go even a little bit further and get medium chain triglycerides, which are then converted into ketones, which basically are prompters for the mitochondria to kind of get a sense of like, oh, these ketones are coming in. This means that we're not getting this much glucose. So we should be very efficient. We should be resilient and adaptive. So I'm really into nutrients that can make your mitochondria adapt better. Cause that's, I think, a key thing that, yeah, needs more research to, to sort of understand how do you get mitochondria that are dealing with a lot of, you know, stresses. Of course, everything that's happening to us, especially even cortisol. Cortisol can really hurt our mitochondria. Mm-hmm. Even things like toxins in our environment that we can't control as well. So lastly, I'll just sort of point out the other things are stuff that our mitochondria do seem to respond to very well, which are these mitochondrial antioxidants and mediators. So ergothioneine, mm-hmm, PQQ, and you're probably like, what are these? These are mostly mitochondrial antioxidants. Mitochews, another one, um, sulforaphane, which is helpful for increasing NRF2, which basically brings into play more antioxidant capability. All those things are very important for mitochondria. And just to point out the protein thing that you mentioned, I know everyone's obsessed with protein these days, but I do not think we need as much protein as the you know, 2 grams per kg or anything else like that, because believe it or not, having too much protein can hurt your mitochondria. And the reason why is because if you think about one of the best sort of longevity pathways we know about, mTOR, mTOR is basically something that responds to getting more protein, especially things like leucine. And when mTOR gets activated by leucine. So usually found in meat and animal products. It basically signals the mitochondria in the body to like make a lot more stuff to grow more. And we actually don't really want to make more stuff as we get older. We wanna be efficient in the stuff we make because if you make too much stuff, like too many proteins, for instance, then you get accumulation of proteins to the point where they become like waste material that is gunking up your system. Mm-hmm. And amyloid plaques are a good example of that, making too much amyloid protein to the point where it clumps up and destroys your neurons. Like, that's not good. So once again, this is a little bit kind of more in hypothesis mode, but I feel like protein is the wrong message to your body in terms of like more and more and more. We do need protein for our muscles to work, but it should never be like an overdose. We should keep that in in play. In fact, most, I would say sort of animal models of longevity have seen that lower protein diets seem to work better for longevity.

And, you know, as you're talking about sulforaphane and ergothioneine, you, you keep coming back to eat more plants.

Eat your, yes, ergothioneine and mushrooms.

Yeah.

I should point that out. Yeah. Yeah. PQQs in milk. Yeah.

And I want to, I do want to talk about MitoQ because I know there's a lot of questions that I had from our community when they, when I shared that I was, had the pleasure of speaking with you. One last question before we go there. You mentioned fasting and ketones with, with fasting. I can, I can understand. You know, just from some of the fasting literature, how that may benefit mitochondrial health long-term. Do mitochondria use ketones as an energy source in, in an environment where they're stressed?

Yeah. So they, they can use ketones for sure, but it's actually not so much like the ketones being a fuel, it's the ketones being a signaling mediator. And so the ketones are basically signaling to our mitochondria and the rest of the cells that there's something wrong. Like there's not as much glucose in the system because ketones only get made when, yeah, usually we're fasting and we don't have any glucose in our system. So we break down fat from our fat cells. When we break down that fat, it's turned into ketones. And so ketones are the main substrates we get from breakdown of our, our fat. And so then that signal is basically like, we're not getting a lot of fuel these days, guys. We need to be very, very resilient. Mm-hmm. And so ketones themselves can basically train the mitochondria to, yeah, basically have more efficiency in the ATP that it's made and also the antioxidant sort of genes that it needs to sort of control Yeah. The sort of small amount of mitochondria that need to be used at this point. And then most importantly, ketones are very good at autophagy, kind of recycling. So basically telling the mitochondria like, we're not gonna try to grow a lot. We're just gonna try to recycle and use what we have. And that recycling is a really great thing cuz it's basically making it so cells get kind of like new stuff. Mm-hmm. That works better. So mitophagy is when you get mitochondria getting recycled and mitophagy is like a beautiful thing for mitochondria cuz it's basically making sure all that dysfunction that's happened after, yeah, some time of being exposed to all sorts of things. Now the mitochondria is like made anew and can work better.

And can that also be facilitated by taking in exogenous ketones?

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Okay.

That's, that's the beauty of it. That's the shortcut. So yeah.

So I know, I mean, I think I remember hearing about ubiquinol, CoQ10, oh my gosh, 10, 20 years ago. I may be dating myself. But what I never knew was that it probably wasn't getting to where it needed to go to actually be effective. So can you share a little bit more about what MitoQ is and how it positively may impact not only mitochondrial health, but potentially biological aging?

Oh yeah. Yeah. And this is a real passion of mine because as I said, very few things get into the mitochondria and ubiquinol, CoQ10 has always been thought of as like, oh, this is the perfect thing for mitochondria. But in fact, it's not really that true because as people have started to understand how CoQ10 works, yeah, it's not very bioavailable. It's getting, yeah, sort of challenging to get it into your bloodstream. But what's really a problem is that CoQ10 or any form of CoQ10, I know people are like, oh, but ubiquinol is very bioavailable. It's like, yes, it's slightly more bioavailable. To get into your blood, but to get into your mitochondria, it has to have an active transport system to get CoQ10 in. And there really isn't one cuz normally CoQ10's made inside the mitochondria. It's a great antioxidant that the mitochondria use like all through your life. Unfortunately, it starts to decline when you get older. But the problem with oral CoQ10 is that it's just not gonna get into the mitochondria. It's too big, it's very hydrophobic. Mm-hmm. So you could take all the oral CoQ10 you want and like just a tiny, tiny amount might be able to get into the mitochondria. So this was a huge problem and kind of, yeah, made it so it was clear a lot of these studies done with CoQ10 are kind of middling or not really, you know, showing that much of an effect. And these two scientists in New Zealand, Mike Murphy and Robin Smith, were like, what if we could make a better CoQ10 that was bioavailable to the mitochondria? So that's what they did. They basically made a CoQ10 that has a special tag at the end. It's called triphenylphosphonium. Mm-hmm. And this tag is very negatively charged— oh, sorry, very positively charged. And that positive charge allows it to get into the negatively charged mitochondria and basically act as the antioxidant that CoQ10 should act as. So this happened all about 20 years ago.

Okay.

And over the last 20 years, about 1,000 different studies have now been published on MitoQ and how beneficial it is for mitochondria, how it can get into mitochondria better than I would say like any other supplement I've ever heard of and have this great effect, of course, on the oxidative stress, but all these other great downstream effects of like, hey, if you can improve oxidative stress, can you improve arterial function? Well, yes, you can. You can get better blood flow. Can you improve exercise performance if you can help to oxidate stress? Well, yes, you can. So now there's been about 30 clinical studies showing that MitoQ can benefit your heart, your blood vessels, your exercise, your immune system, your liver health, you know, so that's the beauty of mitochondria is that obviously all our organs have it. And so if you can, if you can just get something into those mitochondria, like that organ will probably benefit. So it's like an entire body kind of benefit, I would say. Though obviously when you start to talk about aging, people focus on organs. They're like, what's happened with this organ? You know, how can we help make this organ work better? So yeah, the one that I'm still kind of waiting for more data is for brain health, we do have an understanding that like a, a trial that has been recently completed did show a benefit of improving memory with MitoQ. So we're excited and that's in healthy adults. So we're excited when that might come out. But yeah, overall, like I think what is really great about MitoQ is that we don't even have to like ask people to do studies for us. We have Researchers all over the world, like researchers from Harvard, Yale, Brown, Cambridge University, Duke, like they come to work with us because they want to use MitoQ because they know it's so powerful.

And I mean, I was amazed at the number of studies I came across, um, thinking about what MitoQ could do. Is, is this a supplement that— so I'm big on prevention. I really— prevention. And, you know, despite all of the conversations around longevity, I really want people to think about peak span. So how do I, how do I stay healthy longer? And if mitochondrial health is core to healthspan. Is this something— is this a supplement that people should consider at a younger age and not necessarily wait until they have a disease to take? Is it— are there preventative properties that, you know, along with lifestyle, along with sleep, along with stress management, you need the whole package. But is this something that should be considered in an early stage of life and not when I'm 50 or 60 and have hypertension or diabetes or any of these other chronic conditions?

I totally agree. This is, this is when people should start thinking about it, like in their thirties at least, because the damage that is happening to our mitochondria is happening. I hate to say it, like in our twenties and our thirties, and I always point out that we can't exercise as well in our thirties as we could in our twenties, cuz our mitochondria have already started to deteriorate. That's right. And we've just recently finished a study in people who are about their thirties. So like the median age was 35 and we saw that MitoQ could help with liver enzymes. So ALT, AST, it could help with blood pressure.

Mm-hmm.

It could help with lipids. Mm-hmm. And so this is people who are healthy, but they're starting to edge into that area of having issues. And I think that's what I get most frustrated with when I see a lot of physicians kind of go like, oh, but you're not at the threshold of actual diabetes. It's like, yeah, but what about like pre-diabetes? What about when my A1C is at like 5.5 or 5.7? You should do something about your health then rather than just waiting for the problem to get worse. So I really, really feel like, yes, do think about your, your aging in your 30s. Think about your mitochondria, cuz your mitochondria, like as I've tried to explain for the last hour, they're really the thing to target for so many diseases, especially brain aging, especially metabolic health. And yeah, there've been really cool studies with MitoQ showing how that if you take Mitochew, even if you're young and, you know, maybe eat like a fatty meal, for instance, you can actually have a better kind of overall metabolic reaction to a fatty meal with Mitochew. So it's not going to have as much of an insulin kind of resistance effect, for instance. And that's why I always think it's very surprising for people to realize is they kind of go like, oh, it's, you know, it's Thanksgiving. I'm just gonna eat like A huge meal. Sure. Eat a huge meal, but realize even like a huge fatty meal can affect your metabolism just in that one instance that can make it so that insulin resistance is starting to happen.

And oh, you've, I mean, yeah, so many questions again. So given the number of, with the research, I know it's third-party tested. Um, there, are there any contraindications to taking MitoQ or anyone maybe aside from pregnant women and maybe that's—

Yeah. Um, yeah, we've had MitoQ tested for a lot of these drug interactions and so it seems to be safe with pretty much everything. So with blood thinners, sure. That kind of thing. Obviously if you have, you know, a pretty serious disease, like consult your physician before taking MitoQ just to see if it's really right for you. But yeah, we do a lot of safety testing for MitoQ, third-party testing to make sure that it's absolutely pure. And yeah, the main thing that we sometimes get people asking about is that, um, with higher doses, like up to 20 milligrams, people can start to have like a GI issue, but this is like 1 in 20 people that might say like, oh, I felt like a little bit nauseous or, you know, weird. So this is something where we just say like, okay, go down to a lower dose. Got it. Stay that for a while. Like let your body adapt. But overall I would say it seems to be safe for everyone, especially people who are older. Someone was giving my 85-year-old mother more Mitoku.

Oh.

Cause she says it really, it really helps. It's fascinating where she's never taken supplements. She's an Irish woman. She feels like supplements are ridiculous. You should just eat food. And I, I tend to agree with her, but as I said, like, there's just very few things that get into mitochondria. And after she started taking it, she's like, oh, you know, like the, the pain in my hip that has been there for years and years just totally went away.

I'm like, interesting.

So yeah.

And I had a question from, and I will let you go soon. I apologize. I could keep talking. This is so fascinating. One question from our community. Does MitoQ impact sirtuins and NAD?

Yeah, it does. So this is obviously in preclinical studies and I would say the main effect it seems to have is on sirtuin 3 and sirtuin 6. Mm-hmm. Sirtuin 6 is interesting cuz I think this is the one that has been really shown to be the main media mediator of improved lifespan. But just for everyone to kind of understand sirtuins, sirtuins are these molecules that basically adapt us to be more resilient in terms of, you know, DNA repair, in terms of a lot of these processes that I would say, you know, decrease kind of inflammation and, and damage. So. That's what's good about sirtuins. I would not say that's the main thing that MitoQ is doing. There's other things I think that are more sirtuin activators. And in terms of NAD+, I haven't seen a lot of research on whether it actually increases NAD+ levels. Mm-hmm. But I do think for sure MitoQ would be very beneficial along with something that improves NAD+. So. Yeah, that's a whole other area I could go on about. But NAD of course is, is really important for keeping our mitochondria able to make energy.

Exactly.

But then so does MitoQ, but in a different pathway. So I think they can synergize well together. We've had a lot of anecdotes, of course, that this has happened, but you know, we haven't had any clinical studies yet, so still waiting for that.

So you're, you're talking about the NMN, the NR, the NAD.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Or just niacin. I mean, you know, you can get some quick fix that way as well too.

And, um, mentioning niacin, you actually, there was a question I meant to tack on earlier. So if I have an MTHFR mutation, um, you said B vitamins are very important for mitochondrial health. Do I need to be even extra concerned about my taking methylated B vitamins to make sure I'm getting my mitochondria what they need?

Oh, completely. Yeah. I, I've actually written a whole review on all these B, B vitamin kind of genotypes, especially MTHFR. And yes, for sure. If you know you have one of those genes, not just MTHFR, but some of the other ones. Yeah. Make sure you're getting your methylfolate. And I would say just take care of your health cuz for sure, having that kind of gene, it can, not only affect obviously brain function, mood, cognition, but heart health. It's, it's one of those things that once again, you can see the importance of B vitamins. If you don't have that same ability to, to use your B vitamins, everything suffers.

And two last questions, and I really will let you go enjoy your Saturday. I keep saying that I don't get to geek out with people often enough anymore. One of, you know, one thing that's really important to me is health equity. And so many, you know, we didn't talk about your newest product, which is, which I've actually been taking that has the S equal, which is fascinating. So would appreciate touching on that, but all the work that you're doing, all, all of the work that we're focused on with healthspan, how do we make it generalizable to more people so that it doesn't feel that I, you know, if I can't take this supplement, I'm not on an equal footing with other people that can. I don't know if my question's making sense.

No, that makes so much sense. And this is something that I get really frustrated with because when I hear people talking about, you know, improving lifespan and improving healthspan, it usually becomes like a billionaire territory. 'Cause we hear about all the billionaires that are investing all this money into like things like, you know, plasma kind of transfer and all the rest. But I will also say that the main thing that I think makes it so that longevity medicine can be for everyone is the best things that work for our lifespan are lifestyle. And that is within everyone's grasp. So yeah, having that exercise, having those kinds of right nutrients from the diet. And I know people are like, oh, but it's, you know, food can be so expensive. Beans are pretty cheap.

Beans are cheap.

Lots of fiber. I know people are like beans. I'm like, actually you can make them taste really good. You just, you just have to find those right recipes and education. So I'm so glad you're doing something like this, this podcast so that everyone can get that kind of education of like, what can I do? You know, I don't have a lot of income, don't even have a lot of time, but like, what can I do that are small changes? And so I think those are the things. And so I used to work for Noom and Noom was all about like, how can you make a small change in your life through like just looking at an app, you know, 10 minutes a day. I thought they were like geniuses at being able to, you know, promote weight loss in a body positive, you know, kind of healthy mind positive way. And so that's, I would say, the other big thing that I would really wanna stress from everyone. I know that especially when you are having a low income, it feels like stress and your problems are just gonna wear on you so much. But there are also a lot of things you can do to maintain positivity. And if you can maintain positivity, you will have a longer lifespan, like one of the best indications from all these centenarian studies is like optimistic people, people who are reaching out and having social connections and having a purpose in life do the best. So yeah. What does that mean when you have a low income? It means like appreciate the people you have with you right now. Appreciate what you're doing and having that feeling of like, you know, I am learning, I'm growing all the time. And that's really the secret to longevity.

Lifestyle. No, the pillars. I mean, the core of lifestyle practice, you can add all the supplements you want, but if you're not focused on having the mindset that you talked about, taking, getting your fiber, getting your phytonutrients, making sure you're moving your body, getting your sleep, you're still not going to optimize. Your ability to be at your peak for as long as possible.

Yeah. And we all have that in our power. We all do. So even my 85-year-old mother who grew up without electricity, which I'm still like, what was wrong with Ireland? They didn't have electricity back in the '50s. But yeah, that was the case. So there you are.

But they're hardy. She's, she's, I bet you she's hardy, strong, and resilient.

Yes, this is very true. So we can all do that.

It has been a pleasure talking with you and I am going to let you go because I have 20 more questions that have come up since we've been talking. But I do want to ask you, cause I ask everyone, what does it mean to you to live with purpose?

Oh gosh. Yeah. It's, it's what I need. Right. So I wake up every day and I, I like the fact that I have so many things that I wanna do and I wanna think about. And, and I'm always surprised when I meet people who don't seem to know what to do with their time. I'm like, I, I need more time to do all the things I want to do. And I would say like the main thing about living with purpose is that it doesn't have to be lofty, right? I think people are like, oh, you know, what am I doing? Like, am I doing anything big? It's like, no, you are bringing joy to the people around you. You are bringing meaning by, you know, the small things that you do to everyone. And you have to just sit and look around and like appreciate how you make that difference.

Mm-hmm.

Because those can be much more impactful than anyone realizes. So I think that's, that's the main thing that I see is that, you know, having that feeling inside of like, this is, this is important that I'm doing even these small things that I matter. I'm tending my garden, I'm doing the things that make me feel alive, that is, that is the best we can do.

I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for spending time with me. I hope we have an opportunity to talk more about MitoQ in the future and keep living with purpose because you're doing great work.

Oh, thank you. And so are you.

The information shared on the Thrive on Plants podcast is solely for educational and informational purposes. It is not medical advice, and it should never be used as a substitute for personalized guidance from a qualified healthcare professional. Always consult with your physician or healthcare provider before making any changes to your nutrition, exercise routine, supplement use, or your overall wellness plan. The opinions and advice shared by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Vegan Gym or its team. While we aim to bring you high-quality, thoughtful conversations, these perspectives are not intended to replace professional medical care. Thanks for tuning in, and remember, you have the power to thrive on plants and live with purpose.