“Mitochondria: The Powerhouse of the Cell”
This phrase is usually drilled into our brains in high school biology, but what does it actually mean? Think of your mitochondria as a tiny power plant in every cell of your body. They convert chemicals found in your cells into ATP, your cell’s energy currency. Mitochondria produce 90% of our bodies’ energy on a day to day basis. Your body has around 30 TRILLION cells and each individual cell can contain hundreds to thousands of mitochondria EACH! With this being said, you should have ample, maybe even excess energy right? Think again.
Our brains use up around 20% of our daily energy so you can imagine how vital mitochondrial health is for brain function. Dysfunctional mitochondria have even been linked to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia(1). Decreased mitochondrial function can also be the cause of chronic fatigue and brain fog. Since muscle contraction requires a lot of energy, you can also imagine that our muscles use a lot of mitochondrial power. Muscle strength has been correlated with mitochondrial health. One study found that a decrease in mitochondrial function led to reduced muscle strength in extension of the knee, meaning those patients had slower walking speeds(2). When muscles or your brain have less energy than they need to thrive, oxidative harmful reactions occur, damaging the tissue. Therefore, healthy mitochondria equal a healthy brain and muscles.
Many things can weaken our mitochondria’s function, including aging, poor diet, lack of exercise, and exposure to toxins to name a few. Thankfully there are a few easy things we can do to support the health of our mitochondria. If we can create healthy cells then we can create a healthy body!
When your body is functioning optimally, a process called mitophagy occurs where your body finds and then recycles all of the damaged mitochondria so the cells can create new mitochondria. Poor mitophagy has been linked to cancer, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia, metabolic disorders, and aging. One of the best ways to boost mitophagy is through caloric restriction or fasting. By lowering the amount of calories you are eating, your body has the ability to redirect its attention from digesting food to cleaning up the waste. Another great way to boost mitophagy is through regular exercise. Doing some form of resistance training or aerobic activity can greatly impact your body’s capability to clean out the bad mitochondria.
Now, let’s talk about less mainstream ways to boost your mitochondrial function. One great way is through short, deliberate cold exposure. Even a short blast of cold water at the end of your shower can trigger your mitochondria to remodel due to it being a good form of stress on your bodies. The same goes for sauna use. Deliberate heat exposure activates many pathways in our body that can lead to better functioning mitochondria. An easy way to improve your overall health is to optimize your circadian rhythm by going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time every day. You should always have dim or red light only at night before bed and sleep in a cool, pitch black room for optimal sleep quality.
Another great way to help out your mitochondria is by practicing your breathing, specifically nose breathing. This is due to nose breathing producing more nitric oxide than mouth breathing. This compound is super efficient at oxygenating all the tissues in our body, including mitochondria, which they need in order to produce ample energy. When our cells have plenty of oxygen, each mitochondria has the ability to create 32 ATP per one molecule of glucose. Without oxygen, our cells can only make 2 ATP per one molecule of glucose. You can imagine then that more oxygen would equal more energy which is correct. Another fun fact is that when cells have ample oxygen, the byproducts of creating ATP are carbon dioxide, which we exhale, and water which our body can then use in other processes. When we do not have ample oxygen, we create a by-product of lactic acid, which is a molecule that builds up in muscles and causes muscle soreness. Breathing deeply is therefore vital for our cells to produce the energy we need.
I challenge you to try to optimize your mitochondrial health by adding some of these habits to your daily routine and see what changes you notice. If this interests you, keep up with our other healthy cells blog posts!
- Monzio Compagnoni G, Di Fonzo A, Corti S, Comi GP, Bresolin N, Masliah E. The Role of Mitochondria in Neurodegenerative Diseases: the Lesson from Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. Mol Neurobiol. 2020 Jul;57(7):2959-2980. doi: 10.1007/s12035-020-01926-1. Epub 2020 May 22. PMID: 32445085; PMCID: PMC9047992.
- Zane AC, Reiter DA, Shardell M, Cameron D, Simonsick EM, Fishbein KW, Studenski SA, Spencer RG, Ferrucci L. Muscle strength mediates the relationship between mitochondrial energetics and walking performance. Aging Cell. 2017 Jun;16(3):461-468. doi: 10.1111/acel.12568. Epub 2017 Feb 9. PMID: 28181388; PMCID: PMC5418194.