Anti-Aging Pt 4 - Mitochondria - User Manual For Humans S1 E20 - Dr Ekberg

good to see you guys again thanks for

coming I'm excited about this is kind of

a fun topic it's got a few corks to it

and it relates very much to health again

and aging this is a fourth installment

and we'll talk about mitochondria

they're usually described as the power

plant of the body of the cell and they

do a few other things as well that I'm

not going to get into

but the main thing they do is produce

energy

and I just want to bring up what we

quote that's the same slide from from

last time the two causes of degeneration

and there's a quote from a book by a

neurologist Dr Pearl Mater

it says the same forces that age your

body or aging your brain only they hit

your brain earlier and harder

these culprits are at the core of

virtually all brain degeneration from

mild memory issues to Alzheimer's

and the two reasons are the

proliferation of destructive chemicals

called free radicals which we talked

about last time and then two the decline

in the ability of the brain to make

energy

and that's what we'll talk about today

because these two things put together

creates a low-grade inflammation which

is the true mechanism for virtually all

degenerative disease

when we talk about the the brain and the

nervous system we talk about telomeres

the way that they get damaged is because

of free radicals and because we don't

have enough energy to to deal with it

so we will talk about energy today

and just a few terms

people talk about metabolism and that's

that's a common term uh we'll we'll

introduce also anabolism which simply

means to build up

catabolism which means to break down and

metabolism is just transform it's taking

some basically taking food and turning

it into energy and and body parts that's

metabolism

just a little side note here because

we're talking a lot about stress and and

brain

anabolism building up can only happen

from the parasympathetic

that portion of redu rebuilding

repairing building stuff really only

works all the way when we're in the

parasympathetic or relaxed mode

and catabolism break down that's when

we're stressed

and

when we are stressed the body doesn't

care about anything else than to survive

that moment

so it's not going to worry about healing

anything it's not going to worry about

fighting infections it's not going to

worry about digesting food it just wants

to get away from that grizzly bear so in

those moments you're in a catabolic

State you'll break down you'll sacrifice

anything

it's kind of like a steamship where

they're trying to get a little more

speed out of the engine and they're

running out of fuel so they start

breaking pieces off the boat and feeding

it to the flames

it doesn't make sense in the long run

but it makes sense in an emergency

so that's kind of what the body is doing

also

and when we talk about the food that we

eat they talk about we need so many

calories and we need fresh air to

breathe and we need oxygen and all that

we don't really need those things per se

we don't need oxygen we just need oxygen

because it can produce energy for us we

don't need calories we just need the end

result of the calories and the oxygen so

we don't use those things directly we

use the end result of them and that end

result and I just bring that point up

because the end result is what we're

going to talk about today when we talk

about energy

in the body there's only one kind of

energy it's called ATP

and we'll write that out for you it's

it's in the note

ATP

it's too long to write the whole thing

it stands for adenosine triphosphate

and this is in constant Exchange

with ADP

which is

adenosine diphosphate

so as you can see on slide number four

there is

in triphosphate that lasts that third

phosphate it's like it's jammed onto the

molecule with a high energy Bond

and that high energy bond is where we

get all of our energy it's the only

energy that the body can use outright it

fuels all of the the the

reactions and mechanisms and your

movement and your digestions and moving

things it does everything

and the energy that we get is when that

high energy bond is released

and ATP turns into ADP when that third

phosphate is shut off is locked off we

release energy

and that

doesn't sound like a big deal but that's

all the energy that we ever get

is from that reaction

and that's the same for autobiology it's

that that is the mechanism for getting

stuff done what is this is a molecule

yes okay yes so

ATP is a molecule exactly and it doesn't

look like the squares but my PowerPoint

skills are limited

that's when it comes to drawing

molecules

and then the body recycles this all the

time so we'll get to that

so what is this energy used for

there's three categories membrane

transport motility or muscle contraction

and biosynthesis none of these happen by

themselves so signaling

is what the brain does and it's

basically a signal happens when ions

Rush across a membrane and then we need

ATP to pump them back Upstream so that

they can do it again and we keep pumping

keep pumping that alone accounts for 20

percent of all the energy that you use

twenty percent of all the calories and

all the oxygen that you ever in take in

goes to that alone just pumping those

ions back across the membrane to make

signaling possible

and then we need it for absorption for

digestion and digestion is involved with

all three of these because digestion

uses membrane transport to bring

foodstuffs across the membrane in the

gut

uh it uses muscle contraction to move

the stuff along and for digestion the

peristalsis

and digestion uses biosynthesis to put

the stuff back together

into forms that that are usable for the

body

and digestion uses as much as 35 percent

of all of your energy so so far we've

used 55 of your energy and you haven't

done anything yet

that's kind of funny

we think that we oh I'm so tired I used

up all my energy well the energy that we

use for moving around isn't even half of

the energy needed in the body to just

keep things behind the scenes going

and muscle contraction that's any kind

of movement big or small so that's the

big voluntary movements it's exercise

but it's also again digestion and things

like vasoconstriction which means

regulating blood flow and and blood

pressure

biosynthesis

your immune system

has whenever you get an infection your

immune system has to manufacture

white blood cells and immune cells of

the specific kind that you need to fight

off that infection so when you're sick

you usually get extremely tired and it's

because now all that energy goes into

making those immune cells and that's a

very very expensive process you're

making a whole lot of them

DNA RNA proteins growth repair healings

all of those molecules that you use for

for processes in the body and for the

tissue itself they have to be

manufactured that doesn't happen by

itself either and then of course you

have to make molecules like

neurotransmitters and hormones and

digestive enzymes and digestive enzymes

are also very expensive that's a very

very energy intense process and that's

also why we get tired after after a big

meal

so how much ATP do we need these things

are really really small

they're they're molecules

so you use 25 million units of ATP per

cell per second

that's a pretty enormous number

every cell every second so that makes

about 2.2 trillion units of ATP per cell

every day

and then you have about a hundred

trillion cells

so that makes about

10 to the 28th molecules worth

but another interesting fact is that at

any given moment you only have about

three to four seconds worth of ATP

so if you do an all-out Sprint

then you're going to run out of ATP in

about three to four seconds and whatever

you rely on after that is lactic acid

plus ATP that your body makes from that

point on

so this supply of ATP is that

short-lived that whatever you're using

this minute you didn't have last minute

and

every 24 hours this this ATP ADP is

recycled anywhere from a thousand to

fifteen hundred times probably more if

you if you exercise

so when you add all this up you recycle

some 10 to the 28th to the power 28th

molecules of ATP and the sun if you were

to it's not like that it leaves or

comes into the body but the total weight

of that is about 200 400 pounds 200

kilos worth of ATP every day

and who does all this

this is where it gets kind of funny

it's the mitochondrion

mitochondrion is singular mitochondria

is plural

and every cell in your body has anywhere

from just a few to several thousand

mitochondria per cell

so the tissues that need more energy

they're going to obviously have more

mitochondria and those are primarily the

brain the heart and the liver

because the heart keeps pumping blood

all day long it never rests your brain

is is always always processing and your

liver is always trying to clean out and

and process all the foods that you eat

and

here's where it gets interesting I think

this is really funny it's one of these

quirks of nature

see if you think it's equally funny I'm

easily amused I guess

that mitochondria they're in our cells

but they're not really part of our

biology

they they have for for a long long time

they they have become part of our

biology but

they have their own DNA

so when you get your DNA from your mom

and your dad that does not include DNA

for mitochondria

you get 23 chromosomes from your mom and

23 from your dad and that makes 46 total

or 23 pairs but mitochondria is not in

there

so the mitochondria is a little

inclusion in the mother's egg

because every cell of your body has them

then but they don't participate in in

the conception part of combining DNA

so therefore you get all of your

mitochondria from your mother

and the interesting part is because of

this you can use this to trace lineage

because there's only a every time that

that the cell combines

from from the mother or father you have

a new completely unique human that never

existed before

but with mitochondria that doesn't

happen

there is no renewal of that DNA it's the

exact same except for occasional

mutations and that's only happened a few

times in the history of mankind

so there's only a handful it's like we

all belong to a mitochondrial Clan or

category

and if you trace this back we can

actually Trace every single human back

to one person

which they call mitochondrial eve

who lived in Africa somewhere around 190

000 to 200 000 years ago and she is the

ancestor of all humans on Earth today

they thank you thank you

so we don't all have the same father and

she was not the only female living at

the time but she was the only female

that have Offspring living today

and the only mitochondrial variations

since then have been from mutations so

that's how they can trace people back

and and sort of see where where people

come from and belong

so this mitochondria

it has its own circular DNA we have we

have cattle cross forms form dnas

23 of them the mitochondrial DNA is a

circular single chromosome

and

somewhere along probably hundreds of

millions of years ago there was a

bacterium

that migrated into a cell and somehow

helped that cell make energy so that the

two liked each other and stuck together

from that point on

and that's where where mitochondria live

and they make 95 of our energy so Life

as we know it could not exist if that

inclusion hadn't happened

so this becomes interesting also from a

health standpoint and aging standpoint

because it turns out this mitochondrial

DNA is not quite as sophisticated as as

our nuclear DNA

so humans live a really long time

because we have efficient repair

mechanisms for our DNA when something

goes wrong we can repair it and with and

because of that there's relatively few

flaws along the way and we age slowly

because of that

but in a manner of speaking our DNA our

mitochondria age faster than we do so

it's a function of of our aging and it's

a function of accelerated aging

because

it is much more susceptible to damage

first of all it only has rudimentary

capability of repair compared to our

nuclear DNA

but then the other factor is if you

remember we said that last time every

time that you make energy

with oxygen you also make a free radical

remember that it is an inevitables

byproduct of energy production

so inside the mitochondria is where all

the energy is made so the concentration

of free radicals in and around the

mitochondria is way way higher than

anywhere else

so not only are they poor at repairing

but they're exposed to a much much

higher level of free radicals than other

tissues

so because of this the mutation rate for

mitochondrial DNA is about 15 times

higher than nuclear DNA

and then on top of that it repairs worse

so

when these mitochondria get old and

don't function as well it's kind of like

a rusty engine

and

the ATP output goes down the energy

production goes down

but the

free radical output goes up so it's less

efficient so we get less out of it we

get less energy and more smoke if you

will

and Ros is reactive oxygen species

that's the other word for free radical

and

these two factors are associated with

accelerated aging and cancer

so we want to take care of our

mitochondria and provide them resources

so that they can sustain their energy

production better we have talked about

these some of these before but I'll

review them

CoQ10 is an enzyme it's used within the

membrane folds of the mitochondria to

make energy it's just part of that chain

that that creates it there are two forms

of CoQ10 one is called ubiquinone which

is inactive one is called ubiquinol

which is the activated

so after age 35 we lose two things we

lose the ability to make CoQ10

it starts actually declining from age 20

but after age 35 we also lose the

ability to convert the inactive to the

active so when we supplement it we

really want to make sure we get the

active form because that can be absorbed

and utilized as much as eight to ten

times better than the other form

another one we haven't talked about but

I think you guys are all using it is

acetyl L-Carnitine

this is something that occurs naturally

in the membranes of mitochondria and it

helps transport fatty fatty acids across

the membrane for burning so we have two

energy two primary energy sources it's

carbohydrates and fats but they have to

get across the membranes in order to be

available

and as the mitochondria gets damaged and

older then we can help them by providing

this

acetyl-l-carnitine so that they can get

the the

fuel into the cell better into the

mitochondria

and the acetyl group

that they add to the to the supplement

it helps the molecule cross the

blood-brain barrier and this is really

important because a lot of the

mitochondria were trying to help are in

the brain so we want to get this

substance across quickly and intact

so because of this

acetylcholine may have unique

neuroprotective

neuromodulary and neurotrophic

properties meaning neurotrophic is the

ability to grow new nerve cells new new

brain cells

and acetyl carnitine may also help with

memory function mitochondrial structure

and function inhibits age-related

oxidative damage and restore some key

enzymes as well

so it is most people who study aging put

it very close to the top of the list

and so do we

so the cartoon our bodies replace

millions of skin cells every day so how

come the new ones don't look any younger

than the old ones

and you guys are getting so

knowledgeable that you're it's not it's

just barely a joke anymore

you're gonna start start explaining that

pretty soon

so in summary

the mitochondria or

bacteria-like inclusions inside cells

that don't really belong to us they've

been there for a long long long time but

they're not part of our DNA they make

about 95 energy

and their DNA is less protected

and much more sensitive than our nuclear

DNA

whenever we make energy we create free

radicals and therefore these

mitochondria as they get damaged they

produce less energy and more free

radicals the engine starts smoking

this decline is associated with diseases

accelerated aging and and cancer

so what can we do we want to protect

ourselves and our mitochondria by number

one reducing stress that's what the sum

total of all these talks that we're

doing is about eat better move better

feel better and then we can take some

supplements

as follows

and one we want to add back what's

running low that's the CoQ10 or the

ubiquinol

we want to improve membrane transport

and that's acetyl L-Carnitine and we

want to help defend those mitochondria

against the free radical against

oxidative damage and the two top things

to take in addition to all other

antioxidants is an acetylcysteine NAC

which is a glutathione precursor and

undenatured way to also help boost

glutathione production

so that's the reason except for being

good food that's the reason you're

taking those the whey protein is for

glutathione and of course glutathione

helps protect every cell in the body but

along that the way they they predict the

mitochondria as well

so that is all we have thank you very

much for coming and now you know all

about mitochondria

isn't it though