Men around the world are suffering the consequences of mitochondrial dysfunction. The effects are serious but fixes?
Many are very simple.
Tiny, very clever, ‘cell batteries’
“I’ve heard a lot about mitochondria“ one of our clients’ once asked us…
Mitochondria, they’re just a type of ‘cell battery’ aren’t they?
We really love talking about mitochondria to our clients.
Yet, far too often conventional teaching in biology and medicine places mitochondria as the simple ‘energy producers’ of cells of the body…hence the battery link.
So in our experience, the key focus for many practitioners when it comes to mitochondria is simply in relation to fat and glucose metabolism and how many calories you expend on a daily basis
This is because control the (relatively complex) steps of breaking down the various parts of fat and glucose into ATP, the energy currency of the body.
We wrote a whole blog on how metabolism works to convert food into energy and how we measure it in the most accurate way possible at Miller & Everton.
But if the role of mitochondria was simply to supply energy efficiently, then this blog would end right here.
So what else do mitochondria do?
Stating mitochondria just supply energy, is a major over-simplification for these complex cellular machines.
It takes about 3,000 genes to make a mitochondrion and only 3% of this total are allocated for making ATP.
“More than 95% of mitochondrial genes are tied to the functions of the cell it resides in”
Each cell, depending on it’s type can hold hundreds or even thousands of mitochondria. They are found in greater concentrations in metabolically-active organs and tissues such as the heart, brain, liver, muscles.
So what happens when we don‘t have enough or something goes wrong with the mitochondria?
The loss of mitochondria is often the result of an inherited disorder (also known as a primary mitochondrial disease).
However, these are pretty rare and are typically picked up by clinicians at birth through genetic screening. However, they serve as a strong case for how vital these little ‘cells within cells’ are. A primary mitochondrial disease typically results in a whole host of different disorders, such as poor growth, muscle weakness, muscle pain, low muscle tone, exercise intolerance, vision and/or hearing problems, learning disabilities and delays in development.
The other situation is secondary mitochondrial dysfunction and this appears to be the more common condition. In this situation, the mitochondria do not function as efficiently as they should.
Unfortunately mitochondria are pretty delicate and many things can damage them, mainly through uncontrolled oxidative stress. This may sound complicated, but in reality we are all familiar with “oxidative stress or oxidation”
Oxidation is the chemical process that causes rust on our cars, the browning on an apple when cut and exposed to air…it’s all the through the presence of oxygen reacting with other substances or chemicals.
What most of us fail to realise is that our own tissues are subject to oxidation and whilst we have safeguards in place to manage this internally – anti-oxidants – when the balance is totally out of proportion from various environmental and lifestyle insults such as excess calories, smoking, exposure to environmental toxins, anti-nutrients and even excessive nutrients such as sugar.
This barrage of insult tips the balance and starts a chain reaction of damage to cells and tissues and mitochondria are on the list. When mitochondria are dysfunctional we can suffer from seemingly benign symptoms such as poor energy levels, fatigue, memory loss, pain, rapid aging the list is pretty massive.
It’s not just symptoms, dysfunctional mitochondria is bad news for organs that have a high demand for the energy such as cardiac tissue.
Mitochondria and heart attacks?
Yes looking after the mitochondria could be as important as staving off a heart attack.
In fact, a recent review of mitochondrial dysfunction in cardiomyopathies suggests that mitochondrial damage is implicated in several cardiomyopathies such as myocardial infarctions and heart failure.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for 1 in 4 men in the United States, the UK and the Middle East and North Africa.
So men in particular need to stand up and take mitochondrial dysfunction seriously if they care about not becoming part of the vast numbers of men dying from heart-related conditions around the world every day.
So how do we care for our mitochondria?
There are several easy steps to follow.
1. Increase your overall, mitochondrial density through progressive, daily, exercise of varying types (resistance and cardiorespiratory).
You’ll hear all the time about ‘the best exercises for fat loss’ and we’ve covered this in a previous blog post but suffice to say you need to remember the following about the exercise program to start with, whether that’s walking or training for an iron-man.
– Progressive – the exercise needs to keep getting more challenging. This forces adaptation and your body to create more mitochondria, over time.
– Daily – that means, doing movement on a daily basis. Even if you are bound to an office 5 days a week, find excuses to be active.
Be that ’strange guy’ with the standing desk (your body will thank you for it), take breaks every 30 minutes and walk the stairs to the outside of the office, get some sun and come back in. Have standing or walking meetings, walk at lunchtime, go to the gym at lunch…you get the point?
The more active you are, the more metabolically-healthy you will be.
– Exercise of varying types. Doing ‘just weights’ or ’just cardio‘ is nonsense. If your aim is living longer, healthier and in better shape, you need both. You need cardiorespiratory fitness and more muscle tissue.
So get a prescriptive exercise plan from coaches you trust, get accountable and do a mixture of training.
2. Eat less processed food, junk food, sugar, alcohol and empty calories.
This should seem perfectly obvious and in fact, you should really, over time start to avoid these things altogether as much as possible.
But it isn‘t just about doing it for the sake of doing it.
The reason you need to reduce and ideally, remove these foods is to gradually lower your body’s insulin load.
Many of the men in our clinic have no idea they have metabolic syndrome, which amongst other symptoms includes a physiological state called insulin resistance.
Insulin is one of the key hormones that controls our blood glucose (sugar) levels. A perpetual state of insulin resistance will, in time lead to diabetes.
According to a recent piece of research from our of our favourite researchers in this field, Dr Benjamin Bikman, part of the story of why lowering insulin is so powerful, is that it improves the mitochondrial function within fat cells.
Dr Bikman’s lab showed that within participants placed on weight loss diets and either fed a higher carbohydrate (60% diet as carbohydrate), moderate carbohydrate (40%) or low carbohydrate (20%), the fat cells in the low carbohydrate group were the only ones that continued to have high mitochondrial activity after 10 weeks of weight loss and the participants in the low carbohydrate group lost the most weight.
In essence, this work is highly suggestive that in a mostly low insulin state, fat cells continue to use fatty acids for energy as opposed to storing excess energy and this is likely through upregulated mitochondrial activity.
3. Cold exposure can increase mitochondrial activity in (brown) fat cells
Yes this one requires some discomfort but the rewards can be pretty vast (over time).
Deliberate cold exposure can increase both the turnover of mitochondria (mitophagy) within fat cells, their use of fatty acids for energy via beta-oxidation and also, lipolysis (release of fatty acids from storage). This is all driven by the surge of stress neurotransmitters in the form of noradrenaline (sympathetic nervous system – SNS).
There’s also some very interesting benefits on dopamine release which go beyond mitochondria but we’ve covered off here.
The question, before you jump into a barrel of ice is…how much, when and how?
Whilst using an ice barrel, plunge pool or even the sea is amazing. Most of our clients don’t have access to this on a consistent basis.
So we feel using a cold shower is just fine. The trick, for mitochondrial benefits is getting the water cold enough that it’s uncomfortable and being in there for long enough that there’s a shiver response. Typically, 1-3 minutes is long enough.
At Miller & Everton we rely on the The Søeberg Principle, an approach to cold exposure by researcher Dr. Susanna Søeberg who in her research states that to enhance the metabolic effects of cold, force your body to reheat on its own (shivering!)
The ideal here is to allow your body to warm up and dry naturally as much as you can after cold shower exposure. Brush your teeth, shave, apply cologne etc. to allow more time for your skin to dry naturally.
The bottom line
Mitochondria are far more important than ‘cell batteries’ and preserving yours is worth the time and effort afforded in lifestyle, diet and exercise changes. We take mitochondrial health seriously at Miller & Everton.
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