Say GOODBYE to Mitochondria Fatigue

So it seems we have a never-ending list of mitochondria questions because it's become very popularized, social media, et cetera. It's been, of course, well known in science for a long, long time. And people are essentially wondering, what can I do personally to help my mitochondrial function, help it improve, and help me with whatever type of problem is related to poorly functional mitochondria? So I want to break this down into just a couple of little sections to make it a little easier to talk about, and the first thing is what might be conditions that would lead me to believe that my mitochondria do need some support because you can test the mitochondria, but it's kind of hard in with most of the lab tests that we have to really understand, especially if you don't have a primary mitochondrial disease. So first, what would lead me to believe I need help there? And then second, what would be some of the more common, not all, but what would be some of the more common ways that I could support my mitochondria separate from what my doctor might do? So to the first part, the mitochondria create the energy in your body. And so mitochondrial disorders and diseases break into a couple of big chunks in pathology. There are the well-known mitochondrial diseases that are a primary known mitochondrial disorder that is discovered often when children or babies very young because there's some sort of biochemical present mutation, and there's very specific testing rubrics or processes for sorting those things out. Then there's the larger group, which are either functional or acquired mitochondrial dysfunctions that may not have a genetic or heritable pattern, so they don't get a name of a disease. And those things might come about by being triggered by chronic infectious illness, exposure to toxins of any type, other types of chronic illness exposure, sometimes acute shocks and traumas, big, big trauma that you might be in, surgeries, et cetera. And then the other one, which is all over the place, are mitochondrially damaging drugs or other agents. So we talk about toxins, but a lot of drugs that are mitochondrial toxins as well. So while you may not be diagnosed with a primary mitochondrial disease, you might have an acquired or a functional slowdown in your mitochondria for all All of those reasons and many, many more. So mitochondrial dysfunction is part and parcel of any chronic illness, any cellular or tissue-level disorder in the body, pretty much, and any fatiguing state. So that could be, you know, long COVID or chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia, could be fatigue related to autoimmunity, could be, you know, any number of these things. So if you're experiencing any of those things or you have diagnoses in those things, those are the people that need the most mitochondrial support. Now, your mitochondria are still working. That's the good news. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here anymore. But mitochondria have the ability to slow themselves down. So in this one, I just want to focus on what are the things that you could do yourself to help out beyond the things your doctor might help you with, which might include testing and bigger levels of treatment. So the things that you can do, you might say, at home or on your own to be helpful. First thing is adequate nutrition. So adequate nutrition has to start with what we put in our mouth, what we eat, what we drink, et cetera. And we have to not only have the food go in, we have to have it absorbed. Now, if we have certain types of chronic digestive issues, we might need the absorption supported. So this would be where, you know, let's say you have a malabsorption syndrome or something, you might take something to help out. You might take probiotics, you might take digestive enzymes, et cetera. Often you're working with a healthcare practitioner on something like that. So the food going in is super important because it's got the nutrition. But also it has to— nutrition has to break down and get into the bloodstream. The next thing is we want to eat high nutrient-dense foods. Now, if you're a person who eats meat and fish, those are very nutrient-dense because the animal, whether it's a land animal or fish, bioconcentrates the nutrients into the muscle tissue, which is what we wind up eating. If you don't eat meat or fish, et cetera, you can still get lots of nutrient density. And if you look at nature and what nature kind of has that's very appealing, you want to look for heavier and more brilliantly or darkly colored vegetables, some fruits, et cetera, because those are going to literally have the most nutrient density for you. And then if you're an omnivore and you're eating, you know, a little bit of everything, you want to just try and mix it up and get enough of the, you know, animal products and the plant products, et cetera. But there's good, safe ways to get nutrition from really any basic good way that you can eat. So those are really basic things. What's another one that's really basic? Moving your body. We also call this exercise, but if you want to think of it as movement, that's easier. And the idea with movement Is if you're really tired and fatigued, you don't want to go out and start trying to run marathons, but you want to just do a little bit more every day than you're used to. We have people who are really fatigued. We get a lot of people, you know, after surgery or with chronic fatigue or other things. We just start with what they're tolerant of and do just a tiny bit more, and don't increase it every day. Just do the same for a long time. Retrain yourself, and then you can take another step up and another step up. But by doing that, what we know now is you literally the muscles when they're being activated. They literally send signals out that do a whole bunch of things. But one of the things that they do, these signals, is to help the mitochondria say, oh, we can probably work a little bit faster. Again, don't overdo it, but body movement. So we've got diet, body movement, very important. The other thing you can do is rest and stress management. I know that's easier said than done, but that's a huge thing for your mitochondria. Now, what could we add in? So supplements, that's what people are usually looking for. Start with the basics, the B complex of vitamins and trace minerals. Now, theoretically, if you're eating as we just talked about, you're getting plenty of B vitamins and trace minerals. But in people who have either an acute or chronic fatiguing illness and mitochondrial issues, I generally add on top of the diet. So that's why they call them supplements. And there's many supplements you can use, but a good high-quality, high-potency B complex, And then trace minerals. Then we build on top of that. So what would be something your body needs in the mitochondria that you could take supplementally beyond the B vitamins and minerals? Coenzyme Q10. Your body uses ubiquinone or CoQ10 in the energy-producing portion of the mitochondria. And so coenzyme Q10 is often something that I add on top of the B vitamins and trace minerals for people as sort of that core base functional support to the mitochondria. Now, a B vitamin that is an active B vitamin that we will give people on top of the B complex is going to be something to support NAD function because NAD has a form called NADH and the NADH form is from the active B3 vitamin NAD and NADH donates an electron to help run the electron transport chain. That's why NAD is so important. What I would tell you from a lot of clinical experience is you want to have your B vitamins, trace Minerals, your CoQ10, all the other stuff on board usually first, good diet, all the other stuff, then add NAD support. Someone's really fatigued, really tired, et cetera, we're going to have them add those things in to bump up that energy. And then the final thing, although there's 100 other things we could talk about, is going to be light in general and then specific light wavelengths. So light from the sun, your body, you know, humans, we evolved, really all animals evolved using signals from the light from the sun. But red and near-infrared light actually are supportive to the mitochondria. And this is why it's so common to see on, you know, social media, et cetera, people talking about red near-infrared. But if there's no contraindication for you to use it, then red near-infrared light, which you can get pads that have both and are very useful, can also be supportive to mitochondrial function as well. All right. Well, I hope this answers some of the more core, what could I do, you know, so-called at home or with my own diet, lifestyle, and supplementation to support the mitochondria. Really want to thank all you subscribers. Please consider subscribing if you're not. Like, share, do all the things. And we're going to put some other content up here that you might like from the main channel. All right. I'll see you on the next video.