8. Mitochondria — the Refugees That Stayed to Make Dinner

8. Mitochondria — the Refugees That Stayed to Make Dinner

Except for bones, hair, tooth enamel, and nails, our bodies consist of cells, the building blocks of living tissue. A typical adult has 26 to 36 trillion (that’s a “tr”) cells. A cell is a very tiny “bag” that encloses a nucleus with DNA, and protoplasm in which the nucleus and other cell parts float. For our purposes, the other important parts of a cell are the mitochondria, whose function is to burn fuel for the rest of the cell and thus the entire body.

Mitochondria are separate organisms that “merged” with larger cells perhaps 2 billion years ago in what has remained a stable symbiosis (mutually-beneficial relationship) ever since. A mitochondrion (singular) produces energy for the larger cell to use; the larger cell protects the many mitochondria inside it from being eaten by bacteria. Most higher life-forms (animals, plants, and fungi, together called eukaryotes) have mitochondria.

So your mitochondria are not “you” — they are “they”, separate beings, which however only live inside your cells. As separate beings, they have their own DNA, separate from your DNA. An interesting feature of mitochondria in higher life-forms that reproduce sexually is that their DNA is only passed down through the mother. After an egg is fertilized, it destroys all incoming DNA, and this includes the fertilizing sperm’s own mitochondrial DNA as well as all other incoming sperms.

Like any other part of our body, mitochondria can be weakened by stress, poor diet, and toxins. (A “toxin” is anything that your body has no real use for, but costs resources to process, or which directly prevents or impairs an important body function.)

Statin drugs, by the way, directly damage mitochondrial function by disrupting the “electron transport chain”, which is the last step before any fuel is converted into ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the actual direct fuel that living cells need. https://insight.jci.org/articles/view/174125. There is also fairly clear evidence that statins promote both weight gain and diabetes by suppressing GLP-1 (the satiety signaler that Ozempic et. al. promote), decreasing insulin sensitivity, and disturbing the gut microbiome (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S155041312300 5053).

Various foods and supplements may repair mitochondria or help them function better, but except for Glycine-NAC there is little settled clinical evidence in this regard. Some supplements prominently mentioned in relation to mitochondria are: Coenzyme Q-10 and Urolithin (breaks down defective mitochondria, raises muscle and aerobic endurance, might be anti-aging, might mitigate harmful effect of statins), while PQQ (a vitamin-like compound present in mother’s milk and various fruits and vegetables, only recently available as a supplement) promotes growth of new mitochondria.

A Glycine-NAC combination has been shown in small clinical trials to dramatically improve cognitive performance and somewhat increase the strength of selected muscles, from “declining senior” back to “young-adult” level. The dosage used in the clinical trials was fairly high, about 1 gram of each per 10-kilos body weight, but for a senior beginning to experience cognitive decline, the cost and effort may be worth it. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9879756. Many subjects report feeling some effects within 8 weeks, increasing up to 16 weeks. However, the supplementation must be continued or the effects later fade. Smaller doses may be effective to some degree, if continued.