WEBVTT - Why You Need To Be a Mitochondria Part 1 with Dr. Cristabelle Yeoh 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.800 It is the mitochondria that sets up the innate response 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.400 for your immune system. And that is why the people 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:10.720 who struggled with COVID were the diabetics and the metabolic syndromes, 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:14.640 and the obyse and the hypertensives, and they already have 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:17.320 mitochondria that I like limpin alone. 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:32.200 Doctor Crista Bell, Yo, welcome to the podcast. Now you're 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:36.919 on this podcast because I was speaking at the ACNUM conference, 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:41.559 the Australian College of Nutritional Environmental Medicine, and you were 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:46.360 speaking a little bit before me, and I was absolutely captivated. 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:51.760 You talked about my two favorite subjects in one you 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:56.360 talked about hormesis and you talked about the mitochondria. And 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.160 I think I was a bit through my talk and 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.840 I said were chrys de Bell and like, where have 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.440 you been all my life? Yeah? 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:09.560 That was that was funny. I was very toughed. Thank you. 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.520 I was like, oh, that because it was such a 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.280 good that's probably the best talk that I In fact 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:18.400 that it's the best talk I've seen in years at 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:22.319 any conference. And I thought you must be some geeky 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:27.080 researcher who spent their whole career diving into the mitochondria 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:28.800 and home. It's just but you're not. You're actually a GP. 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:34.160 So tell our listeners about just you, your journey and 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.800 why you got interested in this and why you became 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.520 an integrative GP as well, and maybe define that because 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.120 some people may not be a word of the difference. 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:48.080 Okay, well I'll also define actually some people maybe don't 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:52.080 know that the difference between being a physician and a GP. 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:53.280 I'm actually a physician. 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.760 I was trained in the UK, and I was on 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.480 my way to being a gastro and trologist, and I 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:04.560 was all into nutrition and things like that, and then 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.200 I realized in my guestro clinics that I couldn't do 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.440 very much in ten minutes in the NHS, in the 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:18.239 wonderful White Chapel Hospital in East London, and I decided, well, 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:20.040 I don't think I can work in this kind of 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:24.000 environment where ten minutes to talk to patients and to 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.480 treat very chronic symptoms. And as much as I loved 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.280 hospital medicine and acute medicine, I decided I would just 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.400 specialize in nutrition and go into private practice. 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:36.399 As a physician. 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.640 And so that's what I did eighteen years ago. I mean, 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:42.359 a doctor for more twenty five years. 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:46.120 Oh wow, yeah, like you like the female version of 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:46.880 Peter Pant. 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.080 Well, perhaps it's the Asian genes and you know, well, 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.520 to be honest, everything I've taught my patients I do myself. 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.760 And I really started off in an environmental medicine and 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.239 nutrition and environmental medicine. 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:04.919 I know about all what's toxic. I know all about 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:06.200 what not to do. 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.519 Don't invite me to your parties because I'm a real 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:09.239 party pooper. 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:10.840 I'm like, don't eat that, don't drink that. 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.840 But anyway, so that was my journey into being in Australia, 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.880 they call them integrative doctors. Yeah, but yeah, my background 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.400 is an environmental and nutritional medicine. 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.320 And when you do your basic doctor training, did you 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.760 do it in the UK? How much nutritional education did 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:34.680 you get in the basic training? 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:36.840 I don't remember any. 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.200 Yeah, it's I think some places it's two weeks. Some 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:41.440 medical schools it's not. 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:44.600 No, it's not never two weeks. 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.960 It's usually one lecture or half a day here, half 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:52.080 a day there. I don't actually remember any, but maybe 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.840 because I didn't tell them, But I actually then I 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.240 did a master's degree in human nutrition at King's College 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.920 in London. But when I decided, I was a gastron 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.800 Trilogy registrar and I decided, I can't really practice like this. 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.400 I'm going to go back to school and study nutrition. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.560 So I went and got a postcrad Masters in nutrition, 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:15.960 and then I went back into medicine. 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.719 So that's how I interesting. That's so, so you had 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:25.320 done had you finished your residency and things like that, Yeah, okay, 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.000 and then you went back into the masters. Wow, that's 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.679 that's pretty full on and taking a year right after 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:34.520 doing all that training and just getting to the point 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:36.360 where hey, I can I earn some money, and then 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:38.279 you went back to university and did the masters. 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:39.640 Yeah. 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:42.920 And so because of doing that and then being in 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:48.240 private practice and really thinking outside of just regular acute medicine, 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.160 which I love, but really every day doctors everyday work 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:53.480 is very much chronic disease. 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.080 You really have to think about, well, what are all 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:57.320 the drivers. 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:01.360 The contributors, the lifestyle factors, the toxic cities of the environment. 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:04.760 So I was doing that really, and the sorts of 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.479 patients that I was seeing, chronic fatigue syndromes and all 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:14.320 sorts of syndromes that medicine, couldn't label, couldn't understand, and 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:16.800 indeed were more complex. So they would come to doctors 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.560 like us because they've seen the neurologists, they've seen the romatologist, 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.440 they've seen the gasterentrologists. Maybe they have a label, maybe 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:28.080 they don't a lot of the times, first that would 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.200 get the people who didn't have the labels but know 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.520 that there's something wrong and it's not just in their head, 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:38.120 and then they would come to environmental medicine doctors like myself. 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.479 So from doing that, I've had experience of very complex, 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.720 very strange, very complicated conditions. 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:48.680 But really, when you just go back to. 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:56.320 Physiology, biochemistry, understanding the body globally as a huge you know, 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.400 systems biology thing that you have to know a bit 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.120 of everything, so is like being a GP and not 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:04.120 being a specialist. 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.840 And then we go right down to the cellular levels. 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.680 And it gets ridiculously complex when you get down to 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.000 the cellular level, doesn't it, And the whole physiology and 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.839 how nutrition interacts with our cells and all of the 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:23.080 cell processes. I want to zero in on metabolic health 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.960 in general, but then do a dive into the mitochondria 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:31.599 because that's really the thing that captivated me about your talk. So, 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:37.679 metabolic syndrome is a collection of things, and there's different 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:41.839 as you and iBooks know, there are different criteria depending 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:46.400 on who you listen to, but typically three from five 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:53.120 of central obesity, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, lowing it's DL, 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.760 and high fasting glucose. Why that cluster, why is that 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:02.680 cluster so important? And the interaction between those things. 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.600 Why it's important, I think just plays out in that 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.920 that's where the rubber hits the road in terms of 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.440 the interactions of where we see chronic disease happen, which 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:18.880 is cardiovascular health, heart attacks, strokes, dementia, and then you 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.720 know the various range of. 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:23.720 Blood clotting type of issues. 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:29.040 Because that's rubber hits the roads like the endothelial system, 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:34.040 and that endothelial system, the mitochondria play a huge role 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:36.679 in looking after that. Maybe we can come to that later, 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.440 but then okay, well, the mitochondric also play a huge 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.120 role in you know, keeping a blood sugar level and 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:46.720 things like that. But I think from a medical definition 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:51.120 of the high fasting insulin, the high blood sugar, the 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.680 high trigly strides, that's because together, that's just the. 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:59.840 Train wreck in the enothelial vasculature. 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.080 And it's basically your kind of you know, from a 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:07.520 layman's perspective, metabolically, you're starting to fall apart when you 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:11.360 have that cluster. I remember when I was doing my 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:14.559 first attempt at a pH d, which I then moved 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.280 on to something else. But one of my supervisors, she 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:20.840 was a doctor and a research change. She said to me, 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.760 because I was doing a study, We're measuring metabolic syndrome 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:29.000 in people and often, you know, they take the central 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:32.040 obesity high blood pressure of the traguler said to the HDL, 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:36.320 but often their glucose wasn't too bad. And she said 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:39.760 to me, glucose is typically the last thing to go, 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:45.040 and that gives people a false sense of security because 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.080 they tend to really look at their glucose and type 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.120 two diabetes and they think I'm okay. But is that 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.160 your observation as well, that it tends to be the 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:53.800 last to go. 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:55.599 Oh. Absolutely. 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.080 It's funny that having this discussion be because that was 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:03.520 my conclusion to years ago, like, you know, I don't 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.240 care what your blood glucos is, but I will do 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:10.920 an insulin and more interested. I would want I get 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.720 all my patients to do a continuous glucose monitor. So yes, 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.040 I do care what the glucosi is, but not just 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:20.880 on that Tuesday morning am fasting test. You know, I 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:24.240 was like, Okay, it's five point four and that's not 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.880 very good. I'd like to see it around four point five. 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.160 But it's inside the normal range. And everyone thinks they've 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:32.280 got away with it and they're fine. But if you 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.720 do a continuous glucose monitor and you can see the 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:39.319 pattern through the day, the days and the weeks, then 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.080 you start to see all the zig zag peaks and 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.480 troughs that people go through, and that is the big 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:47.119 driver for insulent resistance. 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.560 Yeah, and now I'm a massifier the continuous monitor. I 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.439 think everybody should should try it at least once, because 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:58.480 it gives you some really interesting insights, doesn't it. Because 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:03.080 one food you might spike your blood glucose ridiculously, and 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:05.440 then for me it'll be fine, and then another food 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.199 it will be vice versa. Right, and this one size 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.920 fits all approach is complete and other nonsense when it 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:11.640 comes to nutrition. 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.199 Yeah, that's right, And it's not just the food, but 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.920 how you put the food together on the plate, and 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.360 then what you do after eating it or what have 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.839 you done before eating it? And then sometimes even when 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:28.800 you haven't even eaten, what's your codisol levels, like adrenaline levels, 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.480 like you learn all sorts of great things around your 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.920 whole you know, psychology and everything. 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:40.439 Yeah, and that what you do after you eat as well, 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.959 and the mix of stuff, right, having protein, having fat 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.760 with it really reduces the big spike. Having some citrus, 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:52.360 but even just going for a walk after dinner as 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.800 a profound effect on people's bloodluoks. I mean, if I 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.280 was bizarre at the universe, I would make everybody go 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:00.640 for a walk after dinner. 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.440 If you was the universe call, we would all be 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.079 unbreakable and the world would be completely different. 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:12.360 And I want to have a. 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:16.400 Job, No, well I would I wouldn't have a job, 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:17.640 and I'd be delighted. 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:26.160 So we know if you have metabolic syndrome, your risk 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:31.679 of cardiovascar disease, tattoo diabetes, non alcoholic fat delivered disease, 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:36.760 chronic kidney disease, PCOS, sleepop near cancerus, dementia, that it 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.760 all goes through the roof. And and that's really the 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.920 crux of the issue, isn't it. It's metabolism gone role 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:45.760 for people. 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:51.679 Yes, And what's underlying the metabolism gone wrong is the 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.640 metabolic pathways, of course, and what determines the metabolic pathways 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:58.319 is the mitochondria. 0:11:59.000 --> 0:11:59.920 And that's why I asked. 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:05.920 The almost twenty years of nutritional integrated medicine, I've landed 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.400 squarely on the mitochondria. I mean, I've been following the 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.719 whole mitochondry story for about over ten years and. 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.480 Really is seeking more and more answers for the sick. 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:23.840 There's very complex, very unnamable chronic neurological, weird illnesses, and 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:26.920 you have to come down to really, in the end 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:28.920 what works in the patients. 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.240 And I find that that's where one has to go to. 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.960 So why your interests, I mean, you've been interested in 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.559 the mitochondry much longer than me. I've come to probably 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:45.560 in the last five years and then just realized by 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.360 critical it is. So can we talk about just for 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:53.720 the lay people who might even not know what mitochondria is, 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.480 give us a bit of a definition, and then just 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.920 give us a sense of what mitochondria do in the body, 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:05.079 how wide bread they are, you know, how they're involved 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.319 in your overall health spoostigical or mental. 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.880 Okay, so I mean starting at the beginning, just from 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:19.720 a cell biology perspective, Mitochondria are little mini structures, so organelles, 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:24.559 mini organelles inside the cell, like one hundred to a 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.240 thousand of them, depending on what kind of cell you are, 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.559 a nerve cell, a brain cell, a muscle cell, or 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:35.160 bone cell, whatever. So the number of mitochondria depends on 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.680 what the function is of that cell, and the more 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.160 energy that cell needs, a more mi chondria there are, 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:45.800 so that would be all the neurons, all the muscles. 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.880 That's where we have got most mitochondria because they can 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.680 never stop, like your heart never stops, your brain never stops, 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.560 you know, when you sleep, it's all still pumping around, 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:01.120 working away. So the mitochondria typic we've all learned it 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:06.120 as they are the organelles that make energy for the cell. 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:09.320 And the terminology that being used for a long time 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:13.920 is mitochondria are powerhouses of the cell and they power 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:14.760 up everything. 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:17.280 And that really is true. 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:19.760 But in my talk I was just trying to bring 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:22.800 a bit of a nuance in that it's not just 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.560 they're not just pumping out energy because we need more energy, 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:31.520 we want more energy. The nuances that we actually also 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:35.400 have to do things to feed the energy, like create 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:39.960 create the whole environment, the whole landscape. That the mitochondria 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.760 make energy very fluidly and just very naturally rather than 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.480 like we're trying to squeeze out this energy. So that 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.080 my TOD wanted to bring more nuance because it was 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.960 a group of doctors and integrative practitioners and we all 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.680 know that you know, we've given supplements for mitochondrial energy 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.720 blah blah. But so we'll come to the more nuanced later. 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:04.680 But back to the basics of mitochondria. So they are 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:10.280 in fact processing energy, and they're like a battery of 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.360 the cell, and like batteries as positive negative charge, they 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.640 hold the charge and it's like a capacitor that you 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:25.479 know that gives you energy. And mitochondria have their own genes, 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:31.160 So that's also a newer level of discussion around mitochondria, 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.760 not just that they make energy, but they've got their 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:34.360 own genes. 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:38.440 They've got thirty seven genes. Our our the rest of 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:39.440 our cell. 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:42.680 In the nucleus. Everybody knows we've got all our DNA. 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:46.760 That's twenty zero genes in there, but the mitochondria have 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:50.040 thirty seven genes and those g half of those genes 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:57.120 make the most important energy producing like machinery proteins pathways 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.800 for making energy. So if that doesn't work, the genes 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:06.080 there aren't happy, which is the discussions on epigenetics. 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:07.920 Like what are you what are you doing. 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.720 That alters your genetic function. So if you're doing things 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:16.280 that your mitochondria genes and the epigenetics it's not too 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.520 happy about what you're doing, then it's going to alter 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:25.040 how much energy you are transducing through that mitochondria. 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.400 So that would be the basics that mitochondria. 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:32.240 Are there to power up our biology, and why they 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:36.840 do it is like amazingly complex with its evolutionary pathways. 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:41.200 They're highly conserved. You know, you can't just they didn't 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:42.080 just change. 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:44.440 Over a few generations. They've been there like forever. 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.080 And then how it came about with prokaryotic cells and 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:55.160 eukaryotic cells, so all that, like early life are genetics 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.280 that comes from the work of Nick Laine. 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:02.280 Yeah, these these cells that you just mentioned, there's some 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.520 of the earliest life on Earth, right, So, yeah, the 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.119 mitochondria have been around since there was life on Earth. 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.919 Yeah that's that's pretty frigging important, isn't it. 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.120 Yeah, Yeah, that's right. 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:18.040 So they've been around since there's been life on Earth 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:24.640 because they just knew how to use oxygen. And life 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.080 on Earth was about like sulfur and all those hot 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.440 gases from the vents deep in the sea and then 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:35.040 oxygen bubbling up and then how's life going to be formed? 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:40.000 And somehow by magic, you know, these early life forms 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:44.720 knew or found ways to use oxygen. So mitochondria need 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:49.359 to use oxygen, that's its obligate function. But it doesn't 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:54.199 use oxygen. It's just half asked, basically, like it's just 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:58.560 creeping along and you end up in anaerobic metabolism, which 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:03.040 when the cell just has basic energy through sugars and glycolysis, 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.600 but not to really burning fat, not to really burning 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:12.639 through oxygen, not making heaps more atp that energy currency 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:13.320 in the cell. 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:20.080 Are there certain beheaviors lifestyle beheaviors that then ramp down 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:24.800 the effectiveness of the mitochondria and switch us into that 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:29.440 more anaerobic metabolism, And then what are the issues with that? Obviously, 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.600 when we're exercising. If you're exercising intensely, right, then you're 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.960 an anaerobic metabolism. But I'm talking just generally, what are 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:41.000 some of the issues of the mitochondria not working well. 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.800 It would be feeding it a lot of sugar, or 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.320 just feeding the system sugar. If you just have simple 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:53.000 glucose and you can just rely on glycolysis, and let's 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:56.520 say that's not enough oxygen around. So let's say, well, 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.359 broadly speaking, I suppose it would be breathing. Moving size 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.320 definitely does play unto it quite split it apart. Yes, 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:07.280 if you're exercising intensively, then you're going on anaerobic. But 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.280 just the fact of blood moving, pumping, there's going to 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:15.360 be oxygen flow, you're breathing, it's that whole movement of things. 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.199 But if there isn't that and that's not moving up 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.080 very well, and then there's just a lot of sugar 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:25.000 and glucose, then you don't need to kick called a 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:29.480 fatty acid, it's called beet oxidation pathways into gear. You 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:33.959 could just be very lazy and rely on glucose and 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:38.480 so it's a whole lifetime or years of doing that 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:42.240 that you can just downtrain your metabolic pathways to not 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:44.600 learn how to burn fat very well. 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:50.480 I interviewed Professor Richard Johnson on the podcast. He produced 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:55.480 a really interesting research paper around f choks and how 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.840 frigtoks creates a metabolic crisis in the ma to chondria. 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.639 And his research is really interesting because he was an 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:08.080 anthropologist originally and he studied the Great Apes and he 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:12.160 showed that the Great Apes millions of years ago had 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:16.800 a genetical mutitian some of them were when they at fructose, 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:21.480 they got fat and that was naturally selected for. And 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.120 he's shown that basically it's to do with the urycase 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:29.600 gene that every Homo sapient on the planet has the 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:33.960 same version of the urycase gene, where we overconsole fructose 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.440 and we create a metabolic crisis and we shut down 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:43.240 energy production in the mitochondria. That then ramps up our 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:48.640 hunger mechanisms and just basically shuts down your energy. Are 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:50.000 you familiar with that stuff? 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.600 I can't remember about all those pathways. 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:54.840 I've heard them before, but. 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.560 I have Poi Poiol pathway. I think it was the 0:20:58.600 --> 0:20:59.760 Poio pathway from. 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:03.240 Memory and when we eat fructose, you actually need to 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:07.239 use more ATP to convert it to glucose before you 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.399 can use it as energy. And so it was a 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:13.960 bit of a misunderstanding to think that you could just 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.680 eat heaps of fruit to get more energy. You are 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:25.000 filling the liver up with more fatty liver, basically more glycogen, 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:30.800 and then it takes more energy to get ATP from 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:32.399 fructose than from glucose. 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:35.920 Yeah, and so that's where the metabolic crisis comes. So, 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:43.120 Chris Palmer, so I read his book recently about brain energy, 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.040 which I'm presuming that you have read as well. I mean, 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.920 that was pretty fascinating doing and it kind of makes 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:53.240 sense right when I read it, I'm like, oh, duh, 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:57.199 Holy of course, right, because as you said, and I 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:01.520 never thought about this way, we know that is very 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:06.160 very hungry energetically, right. It's like three to three percent 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:08.159 of the year of body we have but uses twenty 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:12.720 five to thirty percent of the energy. And it's the 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:16.399 mitochondria that are pretty central to this. And he basically 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:22.440 shown that very much every mental health conditional or more 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:27.200 than mental health actually and brillant health issues are at 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:31.840 least partly because of mitochondrial dysfunction. So talk us through 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:35.080 that a little bit, like, how does that happen? 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:39.919 I think when you say it's partly mitochondrial dysfunction, I 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:43.760 would say partly because the picture is different than everyone. 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:48.639 Why is someone parkinson, someone ms, someone als And so 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:52.240 you might think, well, the mitochondria is partly at play 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.719 because everyone is presenting differently. But I would say that 0:22:56.200 --> 0:23:03.920 the mitochondria is wholly fundamentally under aligning the neurophysiological inflammatory 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:07.320 processes that haven't been able to be pulled back like 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:12.480 they're full in force, because the mitochondria haven't got enough 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:16.399 bio energetics behind it to pull back and to regulate. 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:25.920 So I'd say that mitochondrial dysfunction is inside every neurological condition, neurinflammatory, autism, depression, schizophrenia, 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.359 mental health, brain health. I mean I don't like saying 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:33.800 mental health. I say brain health because it is. Yes, yeah, 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:38.840 and so why does that happen? It's really the balance 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:44.840 of mitochondrial mismatch. And that's the work put together by 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:50.359 Robert Navio. So in about twenty eleven or twelve, he 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:54.040 published his first set of papers on something called the 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:55.480 cell danger response. 0:23:56.119 --> 0:23:58.520 Oh yes, yes, yes. 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:01.880 Before that he was a see already a mitochondria researcher. 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:07.800 He's a pediatric geneticist MD from the US. I think UCSD. 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:12.960 And so the cell danger response is when the metabolic 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:20.359 slash mitochondria pathways just cannot anymore handle all the information overload. 0:24:21.160 --> 0:24:27.800 So the information overload comes from those highly conserved metabolic 0:24:28.160 --> 0:24:33.200 mitochondrial pathways that have to deal with what evolved with us, 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:37.399 which is what are the signals coming from attackers. So 0:24:37.440 --> 0:24:41.040 the attackers would usually be viruses, but can be bacteria 0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:46.600 as well. So in the Precambrian, you know, prokaryotic sea 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:50.040 of life, it was just like viruses and mitochondria knew 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:53.160 how to live with that, and they just had their 0:24:53.200 --> 0:24:59.520 ways of managing their their ions, their metal ions and ions. 0:24:59.520 --> 0:25:03.520 Catire is to save resources for themselves or they're being 0:25:03.560 --> 0:25:06.200 stolen by a virus or that they're fighting to keep 0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:11.200 that back. So the cell danger response is the mitochondria 0:25:11.400 --> 0:25:15.840 dealing with attack or the attack is not too bad. 0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:20.120 So he calls it peace time and wartime metabolism. So 0:25:20.200 --> 0:25:24.600 when we have wartime metabolism, we have viruses, we have 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:30.440 bacteria and infections that are overwhelming the innate immune pathways. 0:25:30.440 --> 0:25:34.399