7 POWERFUL Supplements to BOOST Your Mitochondria | Dr. A Reveals

So what can you take supplement-wise to help your mitochondria function better and maybe heal? Let's break that down. Hey, I'm Dr. A, and I've been involved in teaching and researching in the naturopathic and integrative medical communities for 30-plus years now. Been seeing patients for a very long time, and I use this channel to answer questions. There aren't a lot of drug treatments that are really aimed at helping the mitochondria. There's a lot of drug treatments that slow your mitochondria down, but there's There's not a ton of drug treatments that are really aimed at the mitochondria. There's a couple that are sort of crossovers between supplement and maybe a drug or a pharmacologic device, and we'll look at those at the end too. But I picked the top 7. Now, keep in mind, this is just 7 common intervention areas. There's tons of other things you can do to help your mitochondria. There's diet things, lifestyle things, sleeping better, all of that stuff. But let's get into the supplements. Number 1 would be very popular on all social media right now. The support of NAD, which is nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD for short, and that basically is the active form of vitamin B3, where they take the body takes two residues of vitamin B3 and links them together with some chemistry. That NAD then becomes a very active cofactor and also donor of energy substrate. So supporting NAD directly feeds the oxidative phosph. phosphorylation system that helps the mitochondria make more energy. So in NAD support, you could get NAD through an intravenous or an injection type of a treatment. So intravenous NAD is very common now in all sorts of clinical settings. Why can't I just take NAD orally? It's because, remember, it's sort of a complicated molecule. The body would break it down if you did that. But what could you take orally that would help? Well, the first one that has probably the most research and the one that I usually prefer if I really need a lot of support for the mitochondria is nicotinamide riboside or NR. And that one, as I say, has good research behind it. It's mostly an oral product that you can get wherever you get supplements. And that one works really pretty good. NMN is nicotinamide mononucleotide. And that one you can kind of find in the US as a supplement, but the FDA is saying that that's a drug and it's taking it off the supplement market. But you can find it. It's just the FDA goes along And tells the supplement company stop making it as soon as they figure it out. In other countries, NMN is very common, and I've used a lot of NMN before it became endangered as a supplement. But nicotinamide riboside is very easy to use. There are also like sublingual NADH supplements, which also work really well. It's like a lozenge, and it's because that's a little more complex molecule, so you want to absorb it sublingually instead of eating it. And then, although slower, the cheapest of all these ways is nicotine. Niacinamide or niacinamide. So this is not niacin. Vitamin B3 has 2 chemical forms. Niacin is a little less active. That's the one that makes you flush when you take it. Niacinamide, the longer name, you don't flush with that. And niacinamide actually goes into NAD formation faster than niacin. So if you take niacinamide as a supplement, that also is a way to boost your NAD levels. It's not going to boost them as fast. So just one quick thing with any of these, if you take too much or you take it too fast, you can some hypermitochondrial symptoms, and that would be like your heart racing or feeling shaky or like overcaffeinated. So if you're going to take these, again, this is information, this is not medical advice. Number one, work with somebody who is a practitioner and knows how to use these things. Number two, always start with a low dose and then work up because some people are more sensitive to stimulating their mitochondria. Quick plug here. If you're a healthcare practitioner working with patients with these issues, I have a CE website and I do webinars on this topic and others. So we're going to put a link in the description below to the CE website link and the particular webinar of interest. Thank you. The next thing, which usually I put first, but NAD support is big in the news, so I left that as number 1. Number 2 is the B complex of vitamins because most, not all of the B complex, but most B complex vitamins are used as cofactors in mitochondrial function, et cetera. So that's a pretty straightforward one, the B complex of vitamins. And even if you are taking like niacinamide or nicotinamide You know, a B3 sort of support, you want the other B vitamins with it because whenever I speed up one B vitamin pathway or pathways, I'm going to use other B vitamins faster. So taking a B complex also balances that out. Number 3, and these don't really go in any order from here on out, they're just sort of the way that they rolled up when I was making this up, is alpha-lipoic acid. Alpha-lipoic acid or ALA is a thiol substance. It's sulfury. If you smell it, it smells like sulfur. And alpha-lipoic acid, it's made in tiny amounts inside the human body biologically, but mostly it's thought of as an exogenous supplement. Well, it turns out that alpha-lipoic acid is a sort of a partial substrate that can go in and help the mitochondria to function more level and normally, et cetera. Now, alpha-lipoic acid, just like NAD+, does a whole bunch of other stuff. But as far as mitochondrial support goes, it's one where you get a lot of other benefits with it, same as like B complex. Or NAD, it works elsewhere too. So ALA is commonly used there. The next one is coenzyme Q10. Ubiquinol is common name, but CoQ10 is, is the most common name used. And coenzyme Q10 is actually a part of the oxidative phosphorylation mechanics, if you will, which is what creates the energy. It creates ATP generation. So oxphos creates ATP generation. CoQ10 is a piece of that. So it's again, especially been chronically ill. CoQ10 can be very useful. If you've been on certain CoQ10-depleting drugs like statin drugs, again, we usually give extra for that. The next is sometimes overlooked, but that's trace minerals. And that's because in a lot of cases, not all, but in most cases where there's a B vitamin that's a cofactor, there's a mineral, usually a trace mineral, mineral along with it. So a common example is normally when we see vitamin B6 as a cofactor, magnesium is with it. So there are coenzymes that go together and they work better together. Well, your mitochondria use a lot of trace minerals, and rather than having people supplement like, you know, 1 or 2 trace minerals in high amounts, what is better for your overall body health and also not getting toxic with trace minerals is essentially to do a multi-trace element as a supplement. So you want to get it from your diet first, but as a supplement, you can take a multi-trace element or a multi-mineral, and usually it will have a bunch of trace minerals in there and they kind of go better Now, the last 2, as I said, are sort of somewhere between pharmacologic interventions and supplement, and they kind of straddle a line somewhere in there. Number 6 is methylene blue. We've got a ton of methylene blue content. Again, like NAD support, if you take too much methylene blue too fast, your mitochondria may speed up too much and you might feel overcaffeinated or get jittery or tachycardic. So be very careful with that. Also, methylene blue, you can look at the other content. There's a lot of, you know, potential safety issues and stuff with it. Make sure you have a very reputable pharmacy or supplier for methylene blue because methylene blue that is not regulated and not tested can have a lot of heavy metals in it. So, make sure you have a supplier that is testing for these things. Then, the final one actually is something we have a lot of other content about too, and that is red light. Red light actually goes in and helps to directly stimulate the mitochondria through oxidative phosphorylation. And so, red light therapies, in addition to being used as maybe antioxidant or pain therapies are also direct mitochondrial therapies. And again, we've got other content on red light, but that puts it in. So, NAD support, B complex, alpha-lipoic acid, coenzyme Q10, trace minerals, methylene blue, and red light. Those are the 7 I wanted to talk to you about. Thanks for all your questions. I'm Dr. A. I use this channel to answer those questions. We really appreciate all of the subscribers that we have and the new community that's growing. And we really just try and keep this channel to talking about things that you guys want answered and getting those answers for you. So I'll see you all in the next video, and check out these videos we're going to suggest at the end screen. Thanks.