Diet & Lifestyle: 4 Things You Must Do For Overall Health & Longevity | Dr. Mark Hyman

So what are the top ways to fuel your mitochondria? There are four key things that I recommend. We are dealing with a massive epidemic of disease and dysfunction today. We are seeing so many people who are suffering with all sorts of symptoms of fatigue and achiness and poor sleep and brain fog, basically what I call FLC syndrome. That's when you feel like crap. So this has a number of features, most of which are caused by our modern lifestyle, our environmental toxins, by our diet. And one of the things that drives the problem is trouble with our mitochondria. When we have a poor diet, when we are overstressed, when we're exposed to toxins, when we have a bad microbiome, when we're inflamed, for any reason, we end up having trouble with our mitochondria, which are the things that make energy in our body. When they don't make energy, we are not feeling good. It's basically the key to feeling good, healthy mitochondria. And it's what we see as we age is a diminishment and a decline in the number and the function of our mitochondria and the health of our mitochondria. And that's why one of the hallmarks of aging that I talked about in Young Forever is dysfunctional mitochondria. And so key to understanding longevity, the key to understanding health, the key to understanding basically every disease is understanding how the mitochondria work, how they get harmed, what you can do to optimize them and how you can actually even improve the number and function. So let's kind of deep dive into mitochondria. What are they? Well, they look like little tiny bacteria that are in your cells, and they actually come from bacteria. And their DNA is actually only from your mother. It's kind of cool. And they have kind of taken up residence in our cells in this ancient evolutionary biology, and they figured out how to convert food and calories into energy by combining with oxygen. And basically it's like a car's engine. You bring in the air intake and the gasoline and you combust them and you get energy that moves your car. Same thing with your mitochondria. You take oxygen and food and you burn it and you get something called ATP, which is the body's gasoline, let's say. And that is a stands for adenosine triphosphate. Phosphate is that bright sparkler kind of color you see on July. That actually is releasing heat, energy and power to drive every cell in your body, every function in your body, every chemical reaction in your body. And so you, you need to really understand how to optimize your mitochondrial Health. Now, sometimes what happens is you, when you produce energy, is you get a byproduct. So you, you get food and calories in and oxygen in and outcomes. ATP products. So you get food and calories in and oxygen in and outcomes ATP, which you breathe out. And you also produce a little bit of what we call reactive oxygen species. These are basically molecules that are a little bit damaged in the process of making energy. We call them like the exhausts that comes from your car, let's say. And they're called reactive oxygen species or free radicals. And, but they're not terrible. They actually do have this process of regulating ourselves, of stimulating antioxidant systems. But it's really important to not get them to be too much and have them just in the right balance. Now, what happens as we age is our mitochondrial quality and number go down. They don't function as well. We don't have as much of them. We end up having less ATP and more reactive oxygen species and free radicals, and that causes more damage, more decline, more inflammation. It's like a snowball effect throughout the body. So besides aging, what causes our mitochondria to kind of become dysfunctional. What causes them to decline in their number and ability? One is a lot of lifestyle habits, right? Overeating, too much food, too many calories, too much sugar. That's the main reason we have damaged mitochondria. And then the list gets even more concerning with the environmental toxins. They're very sensitive to environmental toxins, pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, Valiates, plastics, everything we're exposed to is damaging in some way or mitochondria. Smoking is a terrible thing for mitochondria, stress, chronic stress of any kind, lack of sleep, all these things drive mitochondrial dysfunction. But the good news is that there's a lot you can do to optimize your mitochondria, to make more mitochondria, to make them work better. And it's critical to understand how to take care of your mitochondria. It's one of the seven key physiological systems in functional medicine. So When we look at the body, there are root processes that affect everything. So when you look at mitochondria, you know, oh, you know, I don't, you know, unless you have some genetic inherited mitochondrial dysfunction or disorder, most of us have an acquired mitochondrial dysfunction. And, and the good news is that this, this is fixable. But the bad news is that it contributes to almost all the known diseases like diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, it's, it's dysfunctional cancer. in so many diseases, depression, autism, you name it, mitochondria play a huge role. And so we have to understand that there are some real non-negotiables when it comes to mitochondrial health. And there are four key things that I recommend, and there's obviously more, but these are the four key ones. First is your diet. Get rid of all the sugar, starch, processed food or dramatically limited. Get rid of things that create a lot of oxidation like fried foods. Make sure you're increasing your intake of polyphenols and phytochemicals in plants that are anti-inflammatory that boost mitochondria. You have to eat real food, don't eat processed food, and. And have foods that are as close to their original form as you can. You know, I just came back from a bike trip in Greece, and I ate fruits and vegetables there that tasted phenomenally different. They were so rich in flavor, and that's because of the way they grow them, because the soils, because of the lack of chemicals in their agriculture. And I. It was like. an explosion of flavor. Now, what's contained in that flavor are the phytochemicals, are the medicines. And those are the things that help regulate mitochondria. That's why you see these blue zones where they're eating all these foods. Like I was in Greece, they had all these wild greens every, every time at the restaurant. So they literally collected wild greens and served it up. And those wild greens are full of phytochemicals. And it's one of the things that I think contributes to longevity in some of the blue zones. So really important now. exercise is also critical. It is the way we stimulate our body, we stress our body, and that stress makes us create more energy. We want to stress our body in exercising. And what's happening, it's increasing the demand for energy. So when you run or when you jog or when you do interval training or you sprint, you're actually stressing your mitochondria. And that little bit of stress causes them to become more resilient. It causes them to make more mitochondria to become more efficient. So exercise is so critical to optimizing our mitochondrial function. You need to do both cardio, right? Like zone two training, which is sort of low, long-term exercise, half an hour, an hour of jogging and so forth, or something similar. Also interval training, which is VO2 max training, to train your mitochondria by stressing to be more like sprinting those, those severe exertions where you kind of run as fast as you can for 30, 60 seconds. That increases something called VO2 max, which is actually your ability of your mitochondria to burn energy. It increases it. So even when you're sitting still doing nothing, you're burning more energy if you do that type of exercise three or four times a week. And then there's strength training, which is so important because that recruits more, more mitochondria, builds more muscle, activates mitochondrial biogenesis, makes your mitochondria more efficient. So really important to optimize your mitochondria. The third thing is make sure you get the right kind of light and not any kind of light. But what's happened is our mitochondria are very sensitive to light and they are stimulated by the right kind of light and they're harmed by the wrong kind of light. So we're now flooded with artificial light from TV, electricity, buildings, computers, tablets, phones, alarm clocks, everything. And we don't have enough natural sunlight, which helps our mitochondria. So, all the blue light from our devices really screws up our circadian rhythms, especially when we use them at night, and that affects our mitochondrial function. So, making sure our circadian rhythms are regulated by waking up and getting morning sun, by not using your devices at night, really important. The other thing you need to know about is that you need to sleep for your mitochondria. It really helps to reset your mitochondrial function. It requires deep restful sleep. That's why you feel tired when you don't sleep enough because your mitochondria are not doing well. the next thing that's really important. And I think this is unfortunate that we need this now, but I think we do because of our, our horrible diet and our, our lack of nutrients in this sort of food because of the way we grow them and, and all the stresses we're exposed to and all the toxic environment, all the depletion of our soils, all the, the foods that are, you know, packaged and processed and shipped across the country. I mean, the average apple you eat is, you know, probably a year old. I'm in a storehouse. We don't need your heirloom vegetables anymore. We monocrop. We have genetic modifications, you know, basically, even if you have a perfect diet, you're not getting enough nutrients. So we really need the right supplements. And mitochondrial supplements are really important. I make these a foundation for me. I had chronic fatigue syndrome, so I know my mitochondria are a little bit needed a little extra love. But there's some really important mitochondrial superstars that we'll talk about in a minute. But you can take them. I take all of them personally to charge on my mitochondria and to keep them functioning well. So what are the top ways to fuel your mitochondria? Let's sort of kind of recap a little bit. What are the activities you can to do to build on these four non-negotiables that we just discussed? Well, there's a lot of things you can do to support your mitochondria, but there's about five practices I think are a good start. First, we discussed a little bit, focus on eating real food, healthy diet, lots of phytochemicals, lots of good fats, your mitochondria love fats like avocados, olive oil, MCT oil, have the right amount of protein, plenty of micronutrients, vitamins and minerals, all these are important. You know, Bruce Ames talked about how to get a metabolic tuneup. by using micronutrients that drive so many of these chemical reactions. Because making energy in your mitochondria requires all the B vitamins, it requires CoQ10, it requires lipoic acid, N-Acetyl Cysteine, so many different compounds, ribose, carnitine, the list goes on. And so you need, you know, to actually in the assembly line to turn food and oxygen into energy, you need all these helpers to go along the way. So this is what nutrients are and you need to get them from your diet and from supplements. The next is, you know, you can try things that actually stress your mitochondria a little bit. time restricted eating, fasting. These are great ways to improve your mitochondrial number and function and clean out the old ones. So maybe don't eat for at least 12 hours between dinner and breakfast, ideally up to 16 or even do a longer fast once a week. And that can really help your mitochondria. The next is make sure your light exposure is right. You know, get rid of the screens and device sitting at night, at least two or three before bed, get light exposure in the morning, sunlight in the morning, 20 minutes, really important. It also helps your vitamin D, which is good for you as well. Also exercise, get your exercise routine sorted because you need to make sure you do both cardio and also interval training, the high intensity interval training and strength training. And, and, you know, start slow, but, you know, I, I'm, you know, 63. I'm gonna be 64 this year, and I keep increasing my activity and increasing the challenges I put myself through. And I'm finding, you know, at any age, it's possible to get fit and healthy. So, you know, start slow, but, you know, if you need work with someone as a trainer to learn what to do, if you have limitations. And I have things that I got my knee thing and my back thing and my shoulder thing and this and that. but you find a way to work around it and do something. It's really important. And lastly is eating the right supplements. And there's a number out there, and we can talk about all of them. I've written a lot about mitochondria. You can kind of see in the show notes, we'll link to some articles I've written. But there's something I want to talk about particularly. One is CoQ10, and I think at least 100 milligrams a day is really important. And I take ubiquinol, which is a special form of CoQ10. Lipoic acid is a superstar. It's one of the most powerful antioxidants, critical for mitochondrial function, at least, you know, 300 up to 600 if you're diabetic, I'd recommend 1200 milligrams a day. Resveratrol, also really important for mitochondrial function. It's a phytochemical. You can take, you know, 50 to 200 milligrams a day. Also green tea extract, we call it EGCG or epigallocatechin gallate. And you can take, you know, 2 to 500 milligrams of that. Really important. Carnitine also is important in metabolizing fats. And you can take acetyl-L-carnitine or L-carnitine about 500 to 1,000 milligrams a day. you know, 2000 milligrams a day can be powerful depending on what's going on with you. But usually 500 once or twice a day is fine. So those are the basic supplements I recommend. There's many more. There's ribose, N-Acetyl Cysteine, all the B vitamins and more that help the mitochondria function better. And it's important to see what you need, what your particular body requires, do some testing and figure it out. So you may need more or less, but you know, you can also work with a functional medicine doctor to figure out what your numbers look like, do some testing and see where you're at. But taking care of your mitochondria is probably one of the most important things you can learn how to do. I mean, there's key things we do in functional medicine that are foundational, optimizing your microbiome and your gut, your immune system, your mitochondria, your detox system, your hormonal system. These are all the physiologic systems that drive all disease. So really important to understand your mitochondria, what they are, how they work, and how to optimize them. they're key for your survival. You can't live without them. You know, when you stop, they stop working, you die. I mean, how does cyanide work? For example, cyanide poisons your mitochondria. You're dead within minutes. That's how important they are. So how well you live, how much energy you have, how well your cells work and communicate, how your organs function, all depend on your mitochondria and how they work and how they are functioning. So make sure you optimize your mitochondria, learn about them and take care of them because they're going to take care of you if you take care of them. If you love that last video, you're gonna love the next one. Check it out here. So, the main role of thyroid is to stimulate metabolism and it really affects almost every single function of the body and it can cause so many weird, vague symptoms that people don't even often identify it because it's like, oh, I'm a little this, a little that and you don't really, really get it.