In this educational video, Dr. A (Dr. Anderson) explains how to identify and address mitochondrial dysfunction. He begins by emphasizing the importance of ruling out genetic mitochondrial disease through testing, especially in children, before focusing on acquired, functional causes. He describes how mitochondria are highly sensitive to both internal nutrient availability and external toxins. The video outlines major mitochondrial poisons, including heavy metals (e.g., cadmium), industrial chemicals, smoking, alcohol, and biotoxins such as mold mycotoxins. Nutrient insufficiencies—particularly B‑vitamins, CoQ10, trace minerals, and compounds like alpha‑lipoic acid, NAD/NMN, and nicotinamide riboside—are highlighted as contributors to reduced mitochondrial performance. Chronic illness is presented as a feedback mechanism that deliberately down‑regulates mitochondrial activity, creating a self‑reinforcing cycle of dysfunction. Dr. A then offers a step‑by‑step mitigation plan: (1) eliminate or reduce toxin exposure via water and air filtration, mold remediation, and lifestyle changes; (2) improve diet and supplement with mitochondria‑supporting nutrients; (3) work with a clinician experienced in chronic illness to address the underlying disease and restore normal mitochondrial signaling. He concludes by directing viewers to additional playlist content and encouraging subscriptions.
Chapters
For this one, it's sort of okay. On one hand, where is it coming from? The other hand is what are the general aspects of my life or whatever else that might oppose the mitochondrial damage? So let's jump into this. Hey, I'm Dr. A. Welcome to my channel. I've been working and teaching and researching in the integrative and naturopathic community for 30 years now, and I've been seeing patients in that same community for decades and use this channel to answer questions that we get. Now we have other content that we're going to link description or in the inbox about. mitochondria. So take a look for those. We have a playlist and all that. We're gonna have a few kind of punchier versions of some Q&A to get into subtopics around mitochondria. The first thing is, whenever you have somebody and you're concerned, whether it's a child or an adult, that they may have mitochondrial problems, the first thing you need to do is to do testing that would make sure it's not a genetic mitochondrial disease. Okay. Now, most of these are tested for in children because of course they're born with the mitochondrial genetic disorder, but there are some that are genetic slowdowns or not quite at the disease state or at a more of a functional genomic state where the mitochondria just aren't working like they ought to. So the first thing always is do no harm and make sure you're still going to have to treat it, but make sure that they don't have a hardcore genetic mitochondrial Mitochondrial disease. So that's the first thing to kind of take off at the top on the why question. The next thing is the mitochondria are inside of your cell. There's a lot of 'em. Each type of cell has different amounts of mitochondria, but the mitochondria are inside your cell and they're running your cell by providing energy to your cell. So they're very sensitive to the things that go into the mitochondria to make energy inside the mitochondria. And then they're very sensitive to things that build up on the outside of the mitochondria. We have Mitochondrial respiration, moving in of oxygen and moving out of CO2, but also of junk. So what if I were to take things that aren't in your body already that are metabolic junk and put them in there? Those things might damage your mitochondria. Now, some of these things you already would think of— toxins, heavy metals, for example, especially cadmium, but other heavy metals, very toxic to the mitochondria, chemical toxins. Huge mitochondrial toxins. There are online resources that mostly are used by researchers and physicians where you can put in the chemical name and it tells you how, how much, and where it damages the mitochondria. We have tens and tens of thousands of chemicals in the environment today that we didn't have 100 years ago. So the mitochondria aren't used to these things. And so those are natural mitochondrial poisons. A mitochondrial poison that a person might knowingly ingest would be something like smoking cigarettes. There's a number of constituents by that would be alcohol. Drinking alcohol can do that, and many other things, for example. But also environmental exposure, biotoxins. So things that are in our environment that are made by biologic things like a mold mycotoxin can be a mitochondrial damage. The mitochondria run on a lot of nutrients for intermediates. So a lot of B vitamins in there, coenzyme Q10 is in there. Lots of trace minerals go through there. Whole bunch of nutrients go through. the mitochondria. So poor diet and nutrient insufficiency or frank deficiency will slow your mitochondria down. Other insults, chronic illness. Chronic illness will have a feedback mechanism by which the body will go to the parts of the cell that set the rate that the mitochondria run at and literally turn the rate down because you're chronically ill and the body's protecting you from having too much energy, which seems like a bummer. And it truly is if you have a chronic illness. So chronic illness This actually is a self-supporting mitochondrial damage. So part of dealing with chronic illness is unwinding that. So then the other side of the question is, what do I do about it? Well, the main thing is once we rule out a genetic cause for mitochondrial problem, the majority of mitochondrial problems are functional. They're acquired, and usually they're acquired by things like toxic influences, drugs. There's a lot of drugs that we use and take that are mitochondrial damaging drugs. Outside influences like alcohol, cigarettes, et cetera. Obvious toxins like toxic metals, chemicals, and then biotoxins like mold toxin. So the first thing is, is to take a look at the landscape of your life and reduce all of that as much as possible. That might mean making sure that you cook with filtered water to filter out, you know, metals and chemicals. A lot of people will get deionized water, which is kind of pure, especially if they live alone and they use up a jug every week and that's what they drink and cook with and all of that. The next thing would be if you're ingesting knowingly toxins, you might want to consider those habits and, you know, take those out of your lifestyle. You might want to start to use some filtration devices for the air around you. If you do have some known mold or you know you have some moldy carpet or what, I'd get it remediated and removed. Lower your burden through all means possible. But then remember the other one, which is mostly in our control, is diet and nutrition. And because the mitochondria use so many nutrients, they use a bunch of B vitamins, they use many trace minerals, they use other nutrient substances like coenzyme Q10. And then there's other things that are just helpful to the mitochondria, even though the mitochondria doesn't use them directly usually, like alpha-lipoic acid. We use that a lot in mitochondria rescue with people. Or maybe the more active forms of vitamin B3, which are Mitochondria use a lot, like NAD or NMN or nicotinamide riboside, things like that that we might use clinically. So getting your nutrition back up to speed, and maybe you might need to supplement more in the beginning to kind of get it back up to speed. So once you've kind of dealt as much as you can with toxins, once you've dealt as much with diet and nutrition, then the other thing is if you have a chronic illness and you have this feedforward mechanism slowing your mitochondria down because you have a chronic illness, and this is slow and hard, but you want to work with somebody who works with chronic illness to improve your health overall, and that will slow down those signals to your mitochondria to be working slowly. So your own body telling your mitochondria to slow down, we can make that better over time. Now, it's not a switch the light on quick thing, but that's the other general way that we look at doing it. All right, I'm Dr. A. I hope this answers the question. We're gonna do a bunch of other mitochondrial content. Check out some of the links up here on the screen. Check out our playlists on the main YouTube site. Thank you so much. All new subscribers, please like, share, subscribe, and do the notifications, and I'll see you on the next video.
