Dr. Mark Hyman explains how mitochondria work and why they matter for energy and aging. He covers practical strategies to boost metabolic health and give your cells the fuel they need to function better.
Hi, this is Dr. Mark Hyman. How's your engine running? Welcome back to my series of blogs on Ultra Wellness. In the last session you learned why we're all toxic and how to optimally detoxify. In this session you're going to learn why we all lose energy quickly as we age. and how to fix your metabolic engine. You'll even learn how to give yourself a metabolic tune-up. So what do I mean when I say how's your engine? Well, do you feel tired and worn out? Do you have muscle pain and aches? Do you feel like you're aging more quickly than you should? You could have metabolic burnout, which is very common. So let me explain to you what I'm talking about a little bit here. You might have heard about the study with David Sinclair at Harvard and the rats giving him resveratrol, which was the extract from red wine, equivalent to about 1,500 bottles of red wine. So don't try it on your own. And the fascinating thing was the rats who had the resveratrol extract ate more, exercised less, but they were thinner and fitter, and they lived longer than regular rats. So how do you explain that? Another study by Dr. Bruce Ames was similar. He had old rats that sat around in the cage, did nothing, couldn't find the cheese, didn't swim very far, and he gave them two carnitine and lipoic acid. And all of a sudden these old rats became young rats overnight. The reality is that these rats have the ability to regenerate and repair and heal based on one thing. How could this happen? Really? How could this happen? It's only one thing, one word in fact, mitochondria. Remember that word. Mitochondria, it's a very powerful thing and it determines how you age and how you feel and how much energy you have. So these little factories in your cells, when they're working well, they extract food, energy, and they extract oxygen from the air and they burn it and they produce energy. And that gives you more energy, increased weight loss and healthy aging when your mitochondria are working well. Now there's a ton of them in your body. You have 100,000 trillion. Each one has about 17,000 assembly lines that make energy. and they're easily damaged by toxins, infections and other things. So it's very important to understand that you have the ability to heal and repair and fix your engine and to boost your metabolic power and to increase your energy. So how do you do that? A very important part of Ultra Wellness. Eliminate the causes of the damage to your mitochondria which comes from too many empty calories. What's an empty calorie? It's empty of nutrients, things like vitamins and minerals. A can of cola is an empty calorie. Broccoli, collards, kale, sweet potato, chicken, fish, these are not empty calories. They have other nutrients in them besides just energy. And these lead to an enormous strain on the mitochondria. You have to learn how to exercise intelligently. You need to eat foods that turn up your metabolism and avoid foods that turn it down, which is basically a whole foods diet that I talked about, the ultra-metabolism prescription. You should use supplements that are capable of giving you a metabolic tune-up. And sometimes if you have serious problems, you can test how your mitochondria function in your body. So very important. Also think about a few other things like thyroid, mercury poisoning, toxins, infections, anything that causes inflammation. Certain drugs may damage the mitochondria. And I encourage you to exercise the right way, which is using aerobic conditioning, even in what we call interval training, which is basically like wind sprints. And strength training builds more muscle, which is where the mitochondria are. Very important. So basically there's a couple of things you should know, special things which may help you. Things like carnitine, N-acetyl cysteine, lipoic acid, CoQ10, NADH, magnesium B vitamins, and a few others are the super nutrients that can boost your mitochondrial function and help you prevent aging. They won't do it by themselves. It's not like you can have cholesterol lowering medication, go eat a cheeseburger or french fries and expect your cholesterol to be fine. You still have to eat well and exercise and take care of yourself. But they can give you that little extra boost like those rats who could all of a sudden find the cheese in the maze and swim further and get up on the treadmill by themselves. So very important to understand your mitochondria. Taking care of them will allow you to increase your energy, to lose weight and to age well. And it's a cornerstone of Ultra Wellness. Okay, in the next session, in our last session in this short series of blogs on Ultra Wellness, you're going to learn about the world's most powerful pharmacy. So stay with me next week.
