This is incontrovertible evidence that

growing of hair is reversible and it can

be pretty fast. Wow. And there's more.

So, we all walk around with our

biological history encoded in your hair.

Like for example, if you have marijuana

6 months ago, it's going to be in your

hair.

>> I need to get a haircut. I'm joking.

>> So, my research lab had the idea that if

we could find what was happening in this

person's life when this young hair

become old, then we could understand the

mechanism of the aging process.

>> So, what is secret to anti-aging? It's

the proper allocation of energy.

>> Can you can you how what's the simplest

way you can explain that to me?

>> So, first energy is real and it's the

difference between feeling like you can

change the world or feeling completely

drained and a lot of people live on that

end of the spectrum and it's because

there's a finite energy budget with a

hierarchy of energy needs in the body.

For example, we did an experiment

because we wanted to know how much

energy does it cost to worry about the

future, to ruminate about yesterday. And

we found that the stress hormone

increased energy expenditure by 60%.

Right? So, it needs to steal energy from

some of the things that keep you young.

So, it's not the stress that burns us

down, it's the response to stress. And

the third piece is this energy is from

your mitochondria. And there's about

5,000 trillion mitochondria in your

body. And so, they made our bodies

possible. And they can change how you

feel. Well, I read that studies on

brains of dead people have found that

those with greater sense of purpose have

more efficient mitochondria.

>> Yes, we are really in service of the

mitochondria. They allow us to be alive.

>> Okay, I've got so many questions for you

based on what people wanted to know.

It's like how patients with me, chronic

fatigue or long COVID safely

rehabilitate their mitochondria? What I

consume, how does that impact the

efficiency of the energy? if red light

therapy impacts mitochondria and is

there anything I can do to have more

energy available? But before that, I've

heard you say that most diseases or

disorders can be explained by

understanding energy resistance.

>> Yeah, we think there's increased energy

resistance in cancer than Alzheimer's.

Like fundamentally, diabetes is a

disease of energy resistance.

>> So, is there anything I can do?

>> There is. So, we can start by

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>> Dr. Martin Picard, what is it that you

believe, know, or understand that most

people out there don't believe, know, or

understand?

>> We are energy.

We literally are the energy that's

flowing through the body.

>> Mhm.

>> And and that sounds a little woo if you

don't have context. And that's I think

something that we're just starting to

have the right scientific framework to

to understand to understand ourselves

from first principles as energetic

processes.

>> In a nutshell, what is it that people

are looking for when they

listen to this subject of energy?

>> Yeah, I think people want to understand

what is energy and how can I have more

energy? I can relate to that because

sometimes you know if I look through my

life sometimes I wake up and I feel

amazing and I really have in my view

done the same thing but then sometimes I

wake up and I don't feel amazing

>> and it feels kind of like roulette like

this sort of opaque mystery of how do I

wake up on with more days in a row and

feel amazing like I can take on the

world

>> and then there's also some friends that

I have who are suffering with different

things whether it's chronic illness or

long co or whatever who repeatedly wake

up and feel low energy for years, you

know, at a time.

>> Yeah, it's a really tough place to be

when you wake up repeatedly and and you

don't feel like you have the capacity,

the energy to be in the world. It's it's

a really tough place to be.

>> And and who are you and why did you

commit your life to this subject? I'm a

regular guy who with you know lived

experiences who who's gone through some

tough things that have taught me lessons

and have gone through wonderful things

that have made me feel like life is

really special and precious and then I

became a scientist and as I learned the

tools of science I started to see and I

discovered mitochondria I thought this

is an approach to start to bridge what's

true about the human experience that we

know from first experience empirically

and we know to be real not because you

know some white coatwearing doctor or

scientist you just said yes energy is

real it's in your mitochondria we know

it to be real from first experience

right because we we feel it and then

what science is telling us about how

things work in our bodies right and

about health and and disease and where

diseases come from so I had these

questions so I became a scientist to

bridge those domains of of existence the

the science and the experience um so

I've led a research group at Columbia

University for 10 years uh and founded

an institute uh to really build the

systems and technologies to to help

people grow, heal and and and transform.

>> You have a PhD in mitochondria.

>> Yep. My PhD was in mitochondrial biology

of aging.

>> I mean, there's a an image here in front

of me. Some people will just be

listening, so we'll try and explain it

for them, but there's an image here of a

video. I'll play the video on screen now

and it kind of looks like a looks a

little bit like an alien but I I I read

that this video was quite formative for

you. What is that video and why was that

formative moment in your career?

>> I took this video in England uh in

Newcastle upon time in the north of

England uh with my Jordy friends uh the

medical school there. I was a graduate

student and went there for kind of an

exchange and this is the first time I

saw mitochondria moving. I saw like the

inner life of ourselves and when I saw

this something struck me it's like oh my

god I'm able to see this right and to

see living mitochondria because of the

mitochondria inside of me. It's the

energy that's flowing through my

mitochondria in my eye, right, that's

allowing me to perceive to see this.

Mitochondria made multisellular life

possible. They made our bodies possible

and and we might just be a vehicle for

mitochondria to kind of propagate and

keep on living. So when I saw this like

this is mitochondria looking at

mitochondria

>> and then I was starting to understand

that mitochondria do more than just

transforming energy. What they're known

for is they take the food you eat and

then they take the oxygen that you

breathe in and then those two things the

food the oxygen converge inside the

mitochondria and then something really

special happens. The electrons that are

stuck on food that were stuck together

in a green leaf somewhere right

photosynthesis. What your mitochondria

do is they they kind of unpack this and

they rip off the electrons one by one

and then they flow them like a little

electrical circuit. And that happens in

like the 5,000 trillion mitochondria

that are in your body. And then when the

electrons flow, they need to flow

towards something just like in an

electrical circuit. Electrons flow from

one pole of the battery to the negative

to to the other pole of the battery. Uh

and that circuit is closed in the

mitochondria. So the the electrons from

the food you eat flow towards oxygen

that you breathe and then it becomes

water. And and it's that vital flow of

energy, electrons flowing towards oxygen

that allows us to be alive. And uh

mitochondria do this. And then as they

do this, they transform energy from food

biochemistry into electricity and into

signals and into heat. And the reason

the body is warm is because the

mitochondria as they transform and flow

electrons like a little energetic

circuit, they release heat. So the

source of heat, right, that makes us

warm. You shake someone's hand, you feel

their warmth. you were feeling they

weren't from their mitochondria.

>> So is there a mitochondria in every

single cell in my body?

>> There's on average a thousand

mitochondria per cell.

>> Per cell there's a thousand. So how many

is there in my body?

>> About 5,000 trillion.

>> Who should care

>> about the mitochondria and why should

they care about it?

>> Mhm. Anyone who cares about their

energy, right? About having enough

energy to do what they really care

about.

>> Uh we all care about different things.

We're we're all gifted and talented for

different things. Uh everyone has this,

you know, unique authentic self that

wants to come out. The only way for this

to come out and the only way for a

person to flourish is through energy.

>> Mhm.

>> If there's no energy flowing through

your body, you're dead, right? And if

the energy doesn't flow efficiently,

right, and smoothly through you as an

organism, then life feels hard. Like

you're not at your best. you feel tired

and and you feel like, you know, maybe

it's not worth it. You know, when you're

sick and your immune system is like

draining all of your energy, it's really

hard to be optimistic and it's hard to

be a good person and it's hard to be a

good dad

>> and it's hard to want to do good for the

world if you're struggling with energy.

Do

>> you know what it is? So many of us think

that that just is what it is and that we

can do nothing about that.

>> Yeah. You know, we we breathe in, we eat

food, and then how we feel is kind of

roulette.

>> Yeah.

>> There's this certain I think feeling a

lot of us have that we can't really

control that much.

>> Mhm.

>> Where do we need to start to understand?

Cuz the outcome I want from this

conversation is I want to live my life

with more energy to do the things that I

want to do. And I imagine the people

that are listening also feel the same

way. So where does one have to start?

I'd like to understand the basics and

then move to the actionable stuff like

things I can do

>> so that I live my life full of energy.

>> Yeah. So there there are three things

that are really foundational to how

energy works in the human body. One is

that you are the energy that's flowing

through this body.

>> I am the energy that's flowing through

my body.

>> Yes.

>> So I'm not my body.

>> You're not your body.

>> Okay. I'm the energy flowing through it.

>> You Stephen.

>> Yeah.

>> This expression now that I'm getting to

experience.

>> Thank you.

This expression is an expression of the

flow of energy. If there was no energy

flowing through your body, through your

heart, through your brain, like you

wouldn't be right. You'd be a cadaavver

and we'd say Steven is gone. You know, a

dead body.

>> Yeah. You'd be a dead body. The

difference between a dead body, a

cadaavver, and a living, thinking,

feeling, conscious person, who cares, is

the flow of energy.

>> Okay.

>> You you get so indoctrinated in this

worldview that the only thing that's

real is the physical stuff. and you know

the nucle the the genes that that you

got from your parents and the body the

physical body and that's the real stuff

what you can't see with your eyes not

real

>> right I think that's a reframe that's

kind of a bigger picture mindset shift

that uh we need to and and scientists

struggled with so number one is you are

the energy that flows and transforms

uh through this body number two is

there's a fixed energy budget right all

of us have a fairly fixed energy budget

to deal with and and for example if you

want to have more energy to do more

podcasts to write more articles to uh

you know be more creative. The solution

is not eating more because there's this

fixed energy budget and if you overload

the system you feed it too much food

especially too much sugar it's really

hard on the system and then the system

like an electrical system you jack up

the voltage right and then the system

starts to overheat. Uh so inflammation

is this this overheating there's too

much energy in the system and uh or the

cells are are burning too much energy

and they need to kind of tell other

cells that's and those signals we call

inflam inflammation cytoines.

>> Mhm. So there's a fixed energy budget

that you have to deal with and over time

the organism does a lot of of uh

finessing and adapting to kind of try to

preserve this energy budget

>> and that's somewhat linked to stress I

guess which is I read your work and it

talked about how stress was basically

just like an over consumption of energy.

It's requiring loads and loads and loads

of energy.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. We'll talk about that too then

because I think stress is a really

important one. What's the third?

>> The third one is life is resistance.

In order to be alive, in order to to

grow, to learn, uh to transform, right,

change your views, you need resistance

to go through some resistance.

>> Mhm.

>> You need energy to go through some

resistance, right? If energy just flows

and there's no zero resistance, then

there's no possible transformation. So

if life was always easy

>> and you never faced any challenge any

stress in your life then you would just

remain as is right and and it would be

very boring and from first principles

physics like we know this to be true you

know at a number of levels but for

example the sun this beautiful nuclear

reactor in the sky shoots energy right

as photons. So light is a form of energy

and as long as light you know just goes

and and photons travels in outer space

photon will remain photon light energy

will remain light energy until that

light energy hits a green leaf right and

the green leaf basically breaks or stops

the photon in its path. So it's it

offers a constraint right it offers

resistance. So when light energy faces

resistance now it can be converted and

that's the basis of making food. That's

how nature makes food. It crystallizes

energy from sunlight into molecules.

Life you know plants crystallize light

energy into carbohydrates. Uh and then

those are transformed into the different

kinds of food that we eat. We need

resistance for energy to transform into

something meaningful.

>> So what has um mitochondria got to do

with all of this?

>> Mitochondria are basically little

resistors, right? And and they are what

allows the flow of energy through the

system.

>> Have you got a picture of Okay, here we

go.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. So this is a an image of a

mitochondria.

>> A mitochondria. O N is a singular and

mitochondria is plural. Yeah. So this is

a mitochondrian and there's about a

thousand of these in each of your cells.

>> Okay. And there's about five trillion

cells in your body uh that have a

nucleus and that have these beautiful

mitochondria. And what you see here,

these little wings, these are called

christi. And the christi is where the

food you eat end up and where the oxygen

you breathe end up as well. So this is

where the electrons are flowing. There's

like little electrical circuits here.

And as the electrons are flowing, the

mitochondria become charged like little

batteries. So effectively a

mitochondrian like this has all of these

sites of oxygen consumption and and food

consumption and then that gets

transformed uh into a little charge

battery and once the battery is charged

uh the mitochondria can use that charge

to make ATP adenosine triphosphate which

is kind of the the cellular energy

currency. If a cell wants to contract

right a muscle cell wants to contract in

the gym it needs ATP. So it calls upon

the mitochondria says I need ATP and

then the mitochondria gets to work uh

and then flows uh electrons consumes

some food burns some oxygen that's why

you get out of breath right so when you

get out of breath is because the

mitochondria are using the oxygen and

calling for more oxygen what we've been

discovering is that mitochondria do a

lot more than just making ATP

>> okay

>> they use their their energized state to

produce signals to receive information

and then to produce signals

>> oh so they're talking to each other

>> they're talking to each other

>> and what are they saying?

>> They're they're it's a whole collective

and and they're talking to each other

kind of monitoring what's happening not

only inside the cell but outside the

cell. So on the surface of mitochondria

all along there are little receptors for

all sorts of signals that tells this

mitochondrian is there enough energy? Is

there are we running out of energy? Is

there a stress hormone here? Should we

be getting ready for you know something

dangerous? Uh so mitochondria are like

like a little distributed brain right?

Right. So they're like the intracellular

brain.

>> Am I right in thinking that they used to

be bacteria?

>> They are. Yeah, they did. Yeah.

>> What What is that story? Cuz I I think

someone said that to me before on the

show that our mitochondria are actually

bacteria that from prehistoric times or

something.

>> So the story is about 1.5 billion years

ago. Uh that there was two different

types of bacteria. One type was able to

use oxygen to transform energy, right?

So it could fuel on oxygen and and other

food substrates. The other type could

not. It was anorobic and the anorobic

bacterium was probably a little bigger

and it had like a few more genes. Um,

and it could only ferment its food and

kind of fermenting the food, spitting

out, you know, like lactate or like

yeast does. And what happened is the big

one either engulfed the small one,

right? Or maybe the small one kind of

infiltrated, colonized the big one. And

the story goes uh that this basically

gave a whole bunch more energy to the

big cell. That's one perspective. And

then with more energy, what can you do?

You can evolve more complexity. The

version I I favor based on the evidence

we have is that when mitochondria came

in and then they there was this new

structure, this symbiotic relationship,

mitochondria basically gave the ability

of the cell to perceive the environment

in a different way and to compute

information in a different way. So maybe

the the the coming of of mitochondria

into this big cell made the big cell

social because before this event most of

the evidence says that cells were

asocial. They were little bacteria

foraging for for for themselves and you

know kind of operating from a very

selfish uh perspective just trying to

replicate you know trying to survive.

When mitochondria came in it like gave

those cells a different view on life and

they're like woo we could work together.

How about you become a cell that gets

energy, right? And I become a cell that

uh moves, right? So then you're the gut

and I'm going to be the muscle and and

then then together those two cells can

do a lot more, right?

>> And fast forward a couple billion years

and here we are.

>> Here we are. Yeah. And and that led to,

you know, bodies with organs. You know,

the liver feeds the rest of the body.

The heart keeps things flowing. The

brain kind of computes and and plans. Uh

so that's division of labor. It's uh and

it started with the mitochondria.

>> You you talked about energy resistance.

I've heard you say that most diseases or

disorders can be explained by

understanding energy resistance. Give me

a disease that's linked to energy

resistance.

>> The clearest is what we call insulin

resistance or diabetes, right? Diabetes

affects millions in the world.

Fundamentally, diabetes is a disease of

energy resistance. Uh so if the

resistance is too high

>> because

>> because you have um too much energy

pushed onto the system,

>> sugar, too much sugar, glucose.

>> Yeah, exactly. Or if the mitochondria

are impaired, right, and they can't flow

energy, then the the the energy is kind

of stuck. It faces greater constraints.

Like it wants to go in that direction,

but then there's a barrier and then

another barrier, another barrier. It's

like water flowing, right? nice and and

and and smooth. And then there's like a

dam, right? And if the dam has zero um

openings, right, then the the water

accumulates and then there's high

pressure and then at some point the the

water accumulates and ends up flooding

the the landscape and then damaging

things. So it's a bit like the same

thing. If now you open floodgates on the

dam, right, and then you can use that

energy to make electricity, for example.

You use the the movement of the water to

transform this into electricity. That's

basically what the mitochondria do. Uh

and if you move and you're physically

active, now the flow of energy through

the mitochondria can transform into

work, right? And to speed into uh

movement, right, into lifting.

>> Is this linked to cancer at all? Because

it sounds I mean I don't know much about

cancer, but

>> cells dividing out of um control

>> seemingly randomly. Yeah, I think that

there's a very good chance if you look

at the biology of cancer and what

scientists call the hallmarks of cancer,

there's like a a 10 item flywheel of

these are the core features of of

cancer. Uh all of those features have

some relationship some very direct with

increased energy resistance. Right? So

if energy can't flow smoothly and a cell

uh is you know burning too much energy

and it doesn't flow energy through the

mitochondria which is what cancer cells

do cancer cells ditch their mitochondria

and they revert back to this ancestral

you know cell that didn't have

mitochondria it was anorobic it was

spitting out lactate and we don't really

know why cells do this called the

Warberg effect and the Warberg effect is

when a cell in the presence of oxygen

right if it wanted it could use oxygen

flow electrons through mitochondria uh

and transform energy and and live a nice

social life like every cell in in this

social collective does in the body. Uh

what cancer cells do is they say I'm not

going to use my mitochondria even if

there's oxygen even if my mitochondria

can respire. And by doing this it seems

like cancer cells revert back to this

ancestral cell right that that just

cares about itself

>> the antisocial cell.

>> Yeah. then the the the organism will in

the tumor will try to make more blood

vessels around it. Right? It's called

angioenesis. So it's like the the cancer

cell trying to decrease energy

resistance. It says bring me more

oxygen.

>> So it's kind of like there's a sort of

alien all of a sudden that decides it no

longer wants to work with the rest of

the organism and that it's going to be

selfish and demand more and more

resources for itself

>> and it multiplies itself.

>> Yeah.

>> With equally selfish little aliens.

>> Yeah. And then the body responds by

listening to it and giving it more

resources. Is that what you're saying?

Why do the blood vessels surround the

cancer?

>> Yeah. It's like it's the cancer calling

for you know more energy.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. So energy resistance is the

product of two things. Is how much

energy is being demanded right? Like how

much power is being deployed in in the

in the tumor for example or in the

working muscle. Uh and then how much

energy is can flow through the system.

That's like the equivalent of current in

an electrical system. So if there's a

lot of demand, right, a lot of power is

being generated or a lot of activity is

happening like in a cancer cell, but

there's not enough flow to to to support

that activity, then that increases

resistance.

>> So is there any understanding as to how

those kind of cancers are caused? like

what what causes that moment where you

know you talked about the Wahberg effect

what causes that

>> the cancer community used to think that

the main driver for cancer was genetic

mutations but there's an emerging

perspective that changes in metabolism

changes in the way electrons flow

through through this energetic circuitry

through the mitochondria can actually

drive the uh instance of a of a new

cancer cell and then when a cell becomes

cancerous ditches it its mitochondria it

goes back to this selfish state and then

it makes more of itself

>> and it tries not to die. Explain that

part to me because I was reading about

how cancer cells try and evade death.

>> Yeah. The best way to think about this I

think is as a a social collective,

right? Every cell in this organism uh

cares about the same thing which is pres

preserving the the life and and the

health of the whole being,

>> right? So every cell in in this body is

in a social contract with every other

cell, right? A cancer cell basically uh

gets out of this agreement and says no

no no I'm going to fair for myself. I'm

going to take all the energy I can uh

and I'm going to make more of myself and

it it goes into you know bacterial mode

that happens um sometimes because of

mutations and it seems like there there

are other causes of this like for

example hypoglycemia

>> what's that

>> high blood glucose

>> right uh diabetes is a major risk factor

for developing cancer

why is that I don't think there there

are good explanations out there based on

like the molecular framework of of

disease and you know the the genetic

mutation perspective um if you look at

cancer from an an energetic perspective

and it's I think likely that the

increase in blood glucose increases the

pressure right there's more electrons

that are being pushed onto those cells

to those mitochondria and when you push

too much energy on a system that doesn't

need energy it's like you're trying to

shove you know a lot of of water through

a very small pipe

>> something goes wrong

>> yeah something goes wrong some something

can break. Uh so the the resistance is

uh if you push a lot of energy into a

very small you know container or into a

a channel that can't support that then

the the what happens kind of physically

is an increase in in the resistance to

the flow. Uh and then that can lead to

the cell trying to protect itself. Uh

that's what insulin resistance is in

diabetes. Right? Insulin resistance is a

protection mechanism. there's too much

glucose being pushed onto the cell,

right? And so that causes this excess,

you know, energy coming in. The cell

says, you know, too much and and it

damages the mitochondria, this excess

resistance because there's too much heat

produced, reactive oxygen species,

oxidative stress.

>> I was thinking about smoking and how

smoking also is carcoenic. It's

cancer-causing. Yeah.

>> And through the lens of the

mitochondria, how could something like

smoking be

cancer-causing? Yeah, it's clear that in

cigarette smoke there are carcinogens.

They're molecules that can damage the

genome and cause mutations. Uh it

there's a strong link between lung

cancer and smoking, but for all of the

other cancers, there's much less of a a

clear connection between exposure and

cancer, right? The cancers that that

affect and and kill most people, uh we

don't really know, you know, why they

come, when they come. uh and it's clear

that there's kind of a long history and

uh the the science behind you know

connecting metabolism and cancer shows

that obesity and uh high blood glucose

and diabetes especially which causes

very high you know excursion have very

high spikes in in blood glucose. Those

things are damaging to our cells. And

what the energy resistance principle

says is that biology processes energy in

terms of resistance and it makes that

kind of computation. How much energy is

flowing now? And then how much how much

energy demand and how much energy

pressure am I exposed to and if there's

an imbalance then that uh causes damage.

>> Rather than being innocent bystanders,

mitochondria are hijacked by cancer. The

tumor reprograms them to stop acting

like the body's protective energy

factories and starts using them as a

manufacturing plant to build more cancer

cells. Because of this, targeting

mitochondrial metabolism has become a

major promising frontier in developing

new cancer therapies.

>> Mhm.

>> It hijacks the the mitochondria and uses

them to produce more cancer cells. Mhm.

>> H.

>> So a normal cell

uh is driven its behavior is driven by

the mitochondria. Like mitochondria are

in the driver's seat,

>> right? Mitochondria can basically call

the shots. If is the cell to live and

divide, right? Or is the cell to

contract and remain this kind of cell?

Or if it's a stem cell, is it to divide

or remain a stem cell? Uh or is it to

die? Right? And cells have to make these

decisions all the time. And cell suicide

for the greater good is something that

happens all the time in our bodies. And

that's why and how we get rid of most

cancer cells, right? As far as we

understand, you have a cell that kind of

defects from the social collective and

then the organism has the wisdom to say,

okay, this is no longer ours. Let's get

rid of it, right? Because it could

become cancer. And most of the time that

works well. Uh but what cancer cells can

do is say, okay, I'm they ditch their

mitochondria and then they start to use

them for their own growth. uh and by

ditching their mitochondria they

basically immunize themselves against

the death that mitochondria could could

trigger. So mitochondria have a veto on

cell life or death and cancer somehow is

able to kind of get away from that.

>> And it's it's weird to think about

because yeah the things that are cause

cancer or that have a correlation to

cancer are things like you know as you

said like having too much of this stuff

here too much sugar

>> the white stuff. Yes.

>> High blood glucose levels etc are linked

to cancer. And one would wonder why

eating sugar in excess is going to

increase my probability of cancer. But

obviously it points to the fact that it

must be doing something to my energy

systems which are causing some kind of

malfunction somewhere.

>> Yeah. And what the energy resistance

principle allows us to understand is why

that is and what's really happening. If

you overload your body with excess

energy, the body has to deal with this.

And in a simple electrical system

circuit, if you jacked up, you know, the

voltage and the system is is too weak to

take this, then resistance goes through

the roof. the transistors start to melt

and then the system you know gets gets

damaged. The the same thing happens you

know in the body if you overload the

system with too much energy too many

electrons right very direct parallel

with the electrical circuit there

electrons stuck here on these little

glucose molecules if you ingest this now

it increases the voltage in the body and

then if the mitochondria can't keep up

and because they're they're not flowing

energy because you're sedentary you're

you're not moving um then that increases

the resistance right and then

>> and they might die or malfunction ion

>> correct or things get damaged, right?

The the clear connection here is too

much energy increase energy resistance.

So then the electrons that normally flow

smoothly in your metabolism, right, from

the food to your mitochondria,

then that whole circuit becomes more

resistive. And if you're an electron and

you're trying to go through the the

metabolic pathways looking for oxygen in

a mitochondrian, but then at every at

every point in this cascade, you face

resistance. there is more chance that

that electron kind of jets out and and

then becomes oxidative stress.

>> Well, then what's what's going on with

aging? I've got two women in front of me

and they have two different colors of

hair. Now, let's just pretend for

argument sake and for the sake of this

uh explanation that this is someone's

hair that's gone gray because of stress.

Um, and this is what she used to look

like or he used to look like in terms of

the color of their hair. What I found

really interesting because it kind of

speaks to lots of things that are going

on going on in the body is you're saying

you can actually reverse

gray hair

without dying it. And if so, what does

that tell us about what gray hair is?

But more broadly about stress, energy,

mitochondria, and everything in between.

>> Yeah. Uh what we discovered is that hair

graying is reversible. And and that was

surprising because what I've learned and

what most people learn is that when you

age, it's kind of this linear

progressive decline and and there's kind

of nothing you can do about it. Uh but

it turns out that if you look on most

people's head,

um you can see things like this. This is

obviously, you know, this was dyed and

all of the hairs were were white and

then all the hairs are are are dark. And

if you take a hair like this, uh the tip

here, right, was inside the body long

time ago. This is almost like if you

looked at tree rings,

>> right? You take a tree and you cut it in

cross-section, you see like the rings

and then you can say, "Ooh, this ring

was uh 30 years ago, right? And this

ring is today." Uh so you can use that

to kind of map the history of what

happened in the environment of of the

tree. You can do the same thing. We all

walk around with biological history

crystallized in in this hair. And that's

why if you want to know if someone had a

drug for example like a month ago or six

months ago or two years ago depending

how long the hair is, you can actually

use the hair and all along would be, you

know, the chemical signature of what you

took. So you can find marijuana in in

the hair, you know, here but not here.

So if you if you have marijuana 6 months

ago, it's going to be in your hair and

you're going to walk around uh with that

trace, that physical trace in in your

body.

>> He's got a haircut. I'm joking.

And the idea was if we could find hairs

on someone's head that the tip was uh

dark, right? And then when you look

closer to the body, it becomes white,

right? And you would say the hair was

young, it was young, it was young, it

was young, and then boom, it became old,

right? It lo it lost color. Hair growing

is a a classic hallmark of aging. Um

then we thought then you would know

something that something was happening

in this hair follicle in this person's

body, right? that made this young hair

become old and then maybe we could

understand the mechanisms of the aging

process. So this became kind of an

interesting scenario and through doing

this we found people started to send us

hair samples in Ziploc bags you know

over the mail uh and we were looking for

two colored hairs a single hair that has

two colors kind of like this uh and we

found hairs that uh you know head hair,

beard hair, pubic hairs that showed the

signature. the hair was dark and then it

became white or the hair was white and

it became dark again.

>> So we had physical evidence from like

multiple people that showed white hairs

can go back to being dark and this

contradicted this idea that you know

aging is this linear progressive process

that we're kind of doomed to experience

without any flexibility. I was one of

the participants in that study. I ended

up finding five hairs that had this

pattern. And when we looked at when the

reversal happened, we found that the re

reversal happened when I went on

vacation. And I would go back in those

days on annual uh cycling uh training

camps. So I would go for a week. Yeah.

Where all you do is you bike, you eat,

you sleep. Uh energy started to move

very differently in my body during that

that time. Um, and then when we looked

at the hair and we analyze the the

composition, the molecular composition,

that's what scientists do. You can take

a hair like this, snip the pieces, the

white segment, the dark segment, it's

all the same genome, right? Every hair

has the same genome, the same genetic

material, same food, uh, same physical

activity, same everything. Why some

hairs are like this or like that, uh,

was an opportunity to understand the

dynamics, the plasticity, like how life

can go from being young to old or old

back to young. Uh, and what we found was

that the main signal was a mitochondrial

signal. And in the white hair, I thought

there's going to be less color, right?

Obviously, but also probably less

mitochondria, less, you know, some other

things. We found that the white hairs

have more mitochondria

>> and there was an upregulation of the

body, the the hair follicle where the

hair was becoming old wasn't kind of

letting go of things. It was doing more.

So that means during that period of time

you are more stressed and using more

energy.

>> When cells become old instead of just

dying right they struggle and when a

cell has damage in the DNA or the

mitochondria not working properly or for

some reason they accumulate damage they

become old the cell struggles to make

more mitochondria and it it tries to

kind of compensate and then ends up

wasting a lot of energy in the process.

So on that hair what you looked at that

was gray let's call it um it had more

mitochondria because it was struggling

and why was it struggling?

>> It looks like stress hormones can you

know make a cell struggle for example

>> cortisol. Cortisol. Yes, if you're a

cell, right, and your perspective on the

world is pretty simple,

uh you don't have, you know, the senses

that, you know, we we enjoy, but you do

never let us, you know, sense the

environment. If cortisol comes and you

get the signal, uh it means there's

something out there in the environment

that's dangerous, right? You should be

preparing for having to fight or to

flight or there there's something out

there that's dangerous. Our cells

evolved to interpret cortisol in that

way. Um so, we did an experiment in the

dish. We wanted to know how much energy

does it cost to worry about the future,

right? Or how much energy does it cost

to ruminate about yesterday?

>> Mhm.

>> The thing you didn't do or the mistake

you made at work or that conversation

that went sideways, you know, with your

partner. Uh how much energy does that

cost to be thinking about this, to be,

you know, engaging your stress system,

to be releasing cortisol? Uh so two

students in the lab, Gabriel and Natalia

did that experiment. They put you put

cells in a dish. You give them the

equivalent of cortisol. how much energy

is going to cost for these cells to

prepare. There's nothing damaging

to the cortisol itself, but the cortisol

is a signal that there might be

something dangerous outside, right?

That's like when you're sitting down,

you get an email, you're like, I might

lose my job, right? Or I might not get

this contract and then you you have this

whole stress response. Your heart starts

to beat faster. How much energy does

that cost? Uh so in cells in a dish, we

can isolate that question really well.

We found that the stress hormone

increased energy expenditure like the

cost of life by 60%.

>> So when I'm stressed I'm using 60% more

energy theoretically.

>> I don't know about you but cells in a

dish.

>> Okay.

>> So there the beauty about like bodies

and you know with the mind and you know

this complex organism they're buffering

systems right? So you might I don't

think your energy expenditure increases

by 60% if you're stressed out but it

increases somewhat. What is that graph

there?

>> So there are two graphs here. Uh the top

one is the color of the hair of a single

hair from a young Asian woman who was

part of the study. And what we see here,

this is called the hair pigmentation

pattern, the HPP that we we developed in

the lab to understand quantitatively

bring science to this to hair graying

and and reversal. And so what you see

here is this hair was dark and then it

became white for two centimeters and

then boom completely regained color.

Actually it regained it was darker here

than it than it used to be. Right. And

then stayed dark afterwards. So this is

a hair that we received uh in the mail

as we were starting to to collect uh two

colored hairs. Um and then when we when

we saw this we we had found from a few

different people white hairs that had

regained color. We've never seen a hair

like this. That's dark, white, and then

dark. Right? So, I remember holding this

hair. I was like, "Oh my god, this is in

the same hair." This was

incontrovertible evidence that graying

of hair is reversible. And it can be

pretty pretty fast. Like this transition

here is just a few weeks. This is about

one week, right? So, this white hair

completely white regained color in just

about a week. Um so then we developed an

instrument which was a simple sheet on

the yaxis the vertical is most stressful

thing that ever happened to you. No

stress at all. 10 and zero. And then on

the x axis the horizontal was time. Yes.

On the far right is now. Right. This is

now. This is a year ago. And then we

labeled all the months. And then we ask

people and we ask this uh lady put a dot

on the graph that was the most stressful

time in the past year that anyone can do

the exercise past year most stressful

time.

Okay, maybe last March and then you put

a dot right in March number 10 and then

least stressful part zero and then put

other like meaningful things that

happened that were challenging. So

people put dots, you know, along the

this last year, then connect the dots,

right? The red graph is her dots

connected

>> and it correlates perfectly to her hair

going gray.

>> Correct. And what happened to her life?

She said she finished her PhD thesis and

she was jobless, but she was fine. She

was happy to be done with her studies

and then broke up with her boyfriend.

>> Oh, damn. And her hair went gray.

>> Yeah. Broke up with her boyfriend. She

didn't know what was happening with her

life. She had to travel to Europe. There

was some family drama. Uh she said these

were the la the most stressful two

months of my life.

>> There's a killer question here which is

if that remains chronic does that hair

follicule go gray forever.

>> Yeah.

>> I.e. if I go through a a stressful

period for 2 to 3 weeks and my hair goes

a bit gray. As long as I get out of that

stressful period as quick as possible,

does that hair then return to to black

or dark?

>> Yeah.

>> Do you see what I'm saying here?

>> Yes. It seems like and we ran some like

fancy mathematical model to understand

why this would be possible, why it could

happen like now for this hair and then

be reversible. But we know, you know,

very well if you have a full head of

gray hair and you're 70 years old,

you're not going to regain your color.

Yeah.

>> So there seems to what the model the

mathematical model suggested is that

there's a window of opportunity, right?

where a hair slowly accumulates damage,

becomes more and more probably

energetically inefficient, right? So

there's more and more energy resistance

and then there's a barrier and then when

the the hair hits that threshold now it

loses color.

>> It's done.

>> Yeah. But then if something changes in

the body, right, you go on vacation or

you start to do intermittent fasting and

then there's more energy available for

your dark hair. Now it can be reversed,

right? Because you can go back up

against that threshold. But then

eventually this hair is going to go gray

again. And then if you're way way down

like this hair turned gray 10 years ago

and you go back up, you're too far away

from threshold to regain color.

>> Okay?

>> So it suggests some threshold model that

there's a window of opportunity for some

something as binary as hair color. It's

black or it's white, right? So there's

kind of a window of opportunity there

where

>> where you can reverse gray hair.

>> Yes. I I do want to come back to this

hair thing, but it did make me think

because you you added a layer of nuance

there, which is about the mind.

>> Like if I go through my life um with a

more resilient mind and you get that bad

email and you go and I get the bad

email, I go, "Fuck it. Who cares?"

>> Yeah.

>> Am I therefore going to be a way more

productive person throughout those 24

hours because my mitochondria are using

less energy because there's less

cortisol?

>> Yeah. Based on what we know, I think

that's likely correct.

So, it's not the stress that burns us

down, it's the response to stress. And

nothing is free in biology. And for your

heart to beat a little faster, if you

mount a response to that email, right,

you're burning energy in your heart. And

then you're tensing your, you know, your

your shoulder. That's burning energy.

Now, your brain is going into like

rumination mode and then this thing and

then then it makes you think about your

childhood and this and like and then the

anx the anxiety and then you start to

sweat like everything costs energy.

So the chain of events is I get the

email. It's a very bad email. Says,

"You're fired, Stephen, from the dire.

We found a different host."

>> Yeah.

>> Um I look at the email that goes into my

psychology, my mind. I then have a story

I tell myself about what that email

means for me, my future, my children,

whatever. Which then causes a

physiological response of like chemicals

like cortisol.

>> Yeah.

um which goes into my cells, my

mitochondria, which then have to work a

little bit harder or use more energy,

>> which is ultimately then going to mean

that I'm more tired because I have a

finite amount of energy per day.

>> Mhm.

>> Is that is that sequence of events? I

ask about that sequence because it

offers me an opportunity to intervene at

some point.

>> Yes.

>> Yes. That's a great way to think about

it.

>> Don't open the laptop

>> or like get a little bit better with bad

news.

>> Yeah. or you know learn to be less

reactive, right? Or learn to to feel and

and um you know sit with be aware of

that reaction because the key solution

to kind of to to cutting that sequence

of event that ends up draining you is to

become aware of it.

>> Yeah. Become aware of it. Yeah.

>> Right. uh so you can kind of interrupt

this and people who study contemplative

practices and and meditation and you

know mindfulness approaches I think many

of them think this is kind of the key

right the the awareness the somatic

awareness or introsception so if you

feel into your your bodilies responses

you become free of do I mount a response

is that needed now or not

>> there's different types of stress right

there's like the acute stress which is

just you get the email you feel a little

bit of a spike but 5 minutes like you're

fine.

>> Yep.

>> And then there's the more chronic type

of stress where

>> you're waking up every day with the same

feeling of stress deep inside you for

many many days in a row, many weeks in a

row.

>> Um I hear that acute stress isn't all

that bad and it's very normal and

useful,

>> but it's this chronic stress that can

cause a lot of damage.

>> Yeah. And I think that brings us back to

the concept of how is energy flowing

through the body. And if it flows with

not enough resistance, you can't

survive. But if there's too much

resistance, then you get drained.

>> How do I think about this resistance

thing? Because I'm really struggling

with like understanding it.

>> Maybe one good example to to frame this

is exercise.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. When you start to exercise,

there's increased resistance in your

muscle, right? Your muscles are

contracting. So there's a physical

resistance there, but there's also

energy resistance. So the the energy is

trying to flow through the muscle and

then there's you have mitochondria. If

you have just a few mitochondria and the

muscles are contracting really hard like

you're running, you're sprinting, right?

You're doing interval training. Um, now

the mitochondria don't have the capacity

to flow as much energy as the muscle is

asking, right? So that imbalance of

demand to flow capacity. Now the the

product of this the demand divided by

flow capacity is resistance.

>> Okay? So if you demand a lot of your

muscle because of your your your sprint

uh but you don't have a lot of

mitochondria right it's going to feel

terrible uh and then because the

resistance creeps up and then your

muscle you know becomes really hot and

then eventually there's inflammation uh

and then it burns and and then it's

uncomfortable uh but then so that's like

an acute bout of of energy resistance.

What happens with exercise is once you

recover right the benefits of exercise

don't happen during the exercise they

happen after during the recovery. So if

you recover now you you're the muscles

are relaxing and you're resting

eventually you go you know for you go to

sleep. Uh it's the in during the

decrease in resistance now the cell says

next time this happens I better be

ready. Like this was really

uncomfortable. There was too much energy

shoved into a system that couldn't take

it right. Right? So, I need next I'm

going to make more mitochondria. So,

that that's what happens if you go from

being a sedentary couch potato, right,

to training for a marathon. You can

double the amount of mitochondria you

have in your muscles. And that's the

system feeling the the rise in

resistance like I don't have the

capacity to flow that much energy and

then adapting for this for the next time

and next time I'm going to be ready.

Let's make more mitochondria. So, that's

probably what where the benefits of

exercise come from. this spike in and

and why stress is is not a bad thing

intrinsically, right? If you have a

spike of stress, it stimulates the

process the the the it stimulates the

body to put in place things that in the

long run makes you more efficient,

decreases your resistance. Then you can

go through life with with less

resistance.

>> Coming back to this gray hair thing. So

if if we consider gray hair, my hair

going gray to be the last domino that

fell. So like the symptom

>> y

>> then what is what are the what is the

first domino

>> and can you walk me through the sequence

of events because one would assume that

if I understand that sequence of events

I can also understand how to then

reverse it

>> how to kind of take I got a couple of

gray hairs now and I actually

anecdotally do think weirdly now you've

said this that I have like gray hair

flare-ups where I'll go I'll you know go

through a couple of weeks or months of

doing something and I'll look in the

mirror like what I have 12 now I'm being

generous there's more like 25 I I have

25 now. In terms of those dominoes, the

symptom is gray hair. What is the first

domino that that falls? And what is the

sequence of events that leads to the

gray hair in the follicule?

>> So there's a finite energy budget and

then what the organism does is it

allocates energy in different places

like a business, right? You have this

budget. Do I put more energy here? Do I

put, you know, more resources here? If

so, I need to take resources away from

here. Right? So as stress happens in

your life, it pulls energy away from

some of the things that keep you young,

right? So there's uh there's a kind of a

hierarchy of energy needs in the body.

Not everything can be prioritized the

same way. Do you know Maslo's hierarchy

of human needs?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. So Maslo's insight was uh

>> Oh my god, I just freaked out. My hand

reached down and I just felt someone's

head. It was just I was

>> acute stress response.

>> Yeah. I just Yeah. Caught us off. Sorry.

Maslo's hierarchy of needs. Yeah.

>> So there's there's a hierarchy of energy

needs in the body that's works similarly

to Maslo's hierarchy of needs. Maslo

said for a human being to be fully

realized first you need to have safety

and food and shelter secured. Right?

Once you have this and you feel this is

kind of covered in your life, then you

can start to think about building

relationships with other people, right?

Loving relationships. Once you have this

settled, now you can start to think

about building your skills, right? Like

becoming really good at something. Uh

and then once you have this covered now

you can devote energy to the more

frivolous things like spirituality what

do you call self-actualization and kind

of becoming your best self flourishing.

Uh so he saw this very much as uh this

is this needs to be covered uh and when

things get really hard and there are

constraints on your life the first thing

to go is the top of the pyramid right

your meditation practice or the

long-term type like I'm going to be a

better person no like I need to make

sure we can put food on the table next

week right um so this hierarchy of of

human needs I think aligns with

hierarchy of uh of energy needs in the

body and as far is the importance of

hair color goes, it's pretty low on the

hierarchy. So as the body gets older and

you have more and more cells in the body

that start to uh be less efficient right

there mitochondria working a little you

know less efficiently and uh and then

there there's more inflammation in the

body that's costing energy and uh

there's

more worries about you know professional

obligations and all of these things kind

of stack up and steal energy away from

the things that are there we call them

growth maintenance and repair. These are

like the anti-aging

processes in in the body and those need

energy, but they're not as important as,

you know, facing the stressor that you

think is life-threatening. Now,

>> so if there's a lion chasing me, my body

is going to commit all the the energy I

have to getting away from this lion. And

it might say, "Listen, Stephen, we're

not going to repair the skin next to

your eyes. you're going to get a couple

more wrinkles and we're not going to

make your we're not going to commit

energy to making sure your follicles in

your hair produce black pigment or

whatever.

>> So, I would then look aged. I would look

older.

>> But that's because all of my energy has

been going to something else which my

body considered to be a high priority.

>> Correct. Which also brings me to I guess

the famous uh what we always talk about

with presidents because presidents go

into office often with dark hair

>> and they come out with gray hair and

usually one does not age that quickly in

8 years. We see the same in the Premier

League with football managers. They walk

in on that first day they look very

spritly and energetic and two years

later they have gray hair, bags under

their eyes, wrinkles and they look like

they've aged 10 years.

>> Yeah. So, you're telling me actually

that the the real secret to anti-aging,

if there was one, is this is the proper

allocation of energy.

So, if you don't waste energy stressing

out about the future and the past, and

you can spend more time in the moment

not being overly reactive to things,

which uh is kind of a lifelong effort,

then more of that precious energy can go

towards anti-aging. Can I also pull more

energy in the top? Like, can I just if I

get more energy, does that mean that

there's less likelihood that we're going

to run out of energy when it comes to my

hair follicles being black or gray?

>> Yeah. The thing is, it doesn't look like

we have the flexibility. Like, if you

want to have more energy and you want to

age more slowly, uh, eating more does is

not going to give you more energy.

>> So, is there anything I can do to have

more energy available?

>> Uh, you you can become more efficient.

>> I can become more efficient, but I can't

put more in.

>> No. Hm. And how does one become more

efficient then? You know, you said about

stress. Okay, I'm going to live a less

stressed life.

>> Yeah, it seems like there's a few things

that we know makes organism more

efficient. One is exercising.

>> Okay.

>> Right. Because when you exercise again,

you're increasing energy resistance,

uncomfortable, potentially you're

damaging things, right? Because you're

you're uh increasing what we call

dissipative losses, right? Oxidative

stress and all sorts of things happen

during the the

during the exercise, but then when you

recover now, the body's like, "Next time

this happens, I'm going to be ready."

And the process of getting ready to to

go through a high resistance, you know,

gym session is that you make more

mitochondria, right? your muscles get

bigger and stronger and your heart

becomes more efficient and your

arteries, you know, become more become

softer and you develop, you know, the

the confidence that you can do this

well. Um, and then it becomes rewarding.

You, you know, it becomes enjoyable. So,

all of these things now that you're off

the gym session,

>> right, you spend an hour in the gym

telling the body, "This is what we're

going to do in the future." And then the

body's like, "Okay, I'm going to get

ready." if there's a fixed energy

budget, the only way really to to get

ready for this is to become more

efficient. So by having more

mitochondria, by having a more fluid um

and kind of flexible cardiovascular

system and uh by putting in place all of

these changes, decreasing inflammation,

right? All of these things make more

energy available. It decreases the

energetic cost of doing the activity and

then there's more energy available for

anti-aging, growth, maintenance, and

repair, vitality. So, I suspect that's

why you burn more energy when you

exercise, but you feel like you have

more. And you don't actually have more.

The feeling that you have more energy is

simply energy flowing more smoothly

through this thing.

>> It's more efficient. I've got more

mitochondria.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. What What else? What about food?

You know, I've got uh I've got coffee

here. I've got some alcohol here. I've

got the sugar.

what I consume, how does that impact the

efficiency of the energy flowing through

my body?

>> Yeah, great question. Uh alcohol, what

we know about alcohol is that as we

talked about earlier, nothing is free in

biology, right? So, if you put something

in the body that shouldn't be there,

effectively a toxin like ethanol, which

is what's in there, uh it's going to

cost energy to get rid of it. So there

are detoxification systems in your liver

primarily that takes alcohol, breaks

down the molecule and then you can pee

it out, right? Or metabolize it for

energy even. Uh so there's a bunch of of

energy in ethanol, but when you take

alcohol, it doesn't give you more

energy. If anything, the next day you

feel like because what happens is

you you waste energy degrading the

alcohol, right? and and even though it's

a net plus, you're putting calories in

the machine in the body. Uh but uh what

ends up happening is you burn energy

getting rid of it. So there's a a cool

study where they brought people in, they

gave them a bunch of alcohol, they're

you know effectually effectively drunk

and then they measured how much energy

are they burning and you can do those

kind of studies. We we've done those

studies in the lab in a small room. You

put a human being and then you just

measure how much energy does it cost for

them to stay alive, right? Then you ask

them to not do too much in this smaller

room. They're just sitting down reading

a book. Um and then then you can ask

them, "Okay, now drink this alcohol."

And then you measure, you look, you

minute by minute they drink the alcohol

and then you start to see, oo, it climbs

up. So the alcohol, even though you feel

relaxed inside under the hood, the

body's like burning energy to get rid of

the alcohol. And other toxins probably

work the same way. You know, pesticides

or kind of the things we eat that we

shouldn't be eating. The reason why

those things might be bad for our health

maybe because they they steal energy

away from you know a growing body for

example uh there's good data in South

America children who are exposed to more

pathogens right there's no sanitation

they walk barefoot they they eat stuff

you know that's not clean and um they

have more pathogens uh in their gut

right there there's more uh viruses

bacteria and parasites uh it costs

energy to fight those things enough.

That's why you feel like when

you're burning when when you're fighting

a flu for example, right? Your immune

system, your immune cells are like,

whoa, you know, virus like COVID or, you

know, any, you know, seasonal flu virus.

The immune system goes into overdrive to

kill this virus and get rid of it. And

then that the immune system steals

energy away from the brain, from from

your mind. And then you feel like ah

everything is so difficult. You just

want to be in bed over covers. you feel

cold, which is strategy to basically

save energy. So all of the what's called

sickness behavior, right? All of those

features of your behavior, you become

asocial, right? Your skin is more

sensitive, so you avoid moving. Uh it's

like all of those features can be

understood as energy conservation

strategies, stressors, alcohol,

parasites, all kind of have this

increase the cost of living. Uh and then

because there's a cap on your energy

budget, uh then that energy needs to be

coming from somewhere else.

>> And if you're in those states for long

periods of time, you're in a chronic

state of um I guess like energetic

distraction is the way I'd think about

it.

>> That's that's a cool way to think about

it.

>> I was thinking about it. I was thinking

about it like if you you my body has an

army of 10 soldiers and usually those 10

soldiers are like at work doing the

things that I need to do to survive and

grow and flourish. And then when I have

one of these, I don't know, some sort of

toxic substance comes into my body,

you're basically saying that four of

those soldiers have to be reassigned to

go deal with this invader.

>> And so now I only have six that are

focused on everything I need to

flourish, which is why I probably feel

sometimes.

>> Yeah, exactly. Um, and what if if

there's only six working on my, you

know, fundamental requirements to

flourish, then some of those things are

going to have to give way and I might

end up with gray hair and I might end up

with wrinkles or maybe my brain won't

function the same. Maybe a disease,

>> you know, my immune system won't be

taken care of in the same way.

>> Yeah. Immune system won't be there

clearing the cancer cells, for example.

Um, and the repair processes that happen

all the time in the brain, right?

clearing out proteins that you don't

need, uh repairing dam DNA that's get

gotten damaged, making new mitochondria.

All of these processes happen like every

day. Every day you go through a little

phase of getting rid of the things that

don't work too well to make more of the

things that work well like mitochondria,

quality control, it's called, right? So

there's this quality control cycle. Old

mitochondria that don't work too too

well anymore, they get degraded. It's

called mphagy. Autophagy is selfeing.

Mphagy is selfeing of the mitochondria.

So when a cell, for example, is is

hungry. If you pull energy away from the

cell, the cell goes into a mode like, oh

I might run out of energy. I need

to be really efficient here. So let's

get rid of those mitochondria that

aren't really contributing their share.

Uh, and then I'll have just the best

functioning mitochondria, and then when

food comes back on board, the cell makes

more of the better ones. It made me

think of Alzheimer's and dementia,

weirdly, because I don't really know a

huge amount about Alzheimer's and

dementia, but I know that something

clearly goes wrong in the body that

produces these plaques

>> and and you know, you often hear that

there's lots of things we consume or do

that increase our probability of getting

Alzheimer's and dementia.

>> So, is that at all linked to the same

sort of like energy distraction? It's

been long believed that the plaque right

that you've heard about uh amaloided

plaques and tow tangles and there's kind

of this idea that the brain accumulates

proteins and it's those proteins that

cause Alzheimer's. I think that's what

most people have heard and what most

people believe because it came from you

know white coatwearing scientists and

university professors. Um that is not

the truth. And what is more true is and

and let me just say why it's not the

truth. You can have people in their 60s

and their 70s and their 80s zero protein

deposit in the brain. We can image this

now pretty well with neuroiming. You can

have people zero protein deposit in the

brain and they have full-blown

Alzheimer's and dementia. And you have

the other extreme people with loads of

amaloid plaques and towangles completely

normal cognition.

So those extremes really tell us this

hypothesis this amaloid you know protein

aggregates in the brain as a driver of

dementia and neuro degeneration is not

correct. Uh what we know happens

energetically in the brain is that

initially in the early stages of

Alzheimer's there's kind of an increase

in energy demand in the there's specific

brain regions that tend to be more

affected in some people not not all

people tend to have those protein

deposits. those regions start to burn

more energy. This is early phase, right?

And then at this point, probably this is

the brain trying to cope, right? It's

like something's not working great, but

it's working harder, right?

>> Like like with the gray hair.

>> Yeah, exactly. And then over time the

those brain regions become hypometabolic

and then that's when you start to have

symptoms.

>> What does that mean?

>> That's that's when people start to have

memory issues. And uh you said

>> hyper metabolic.

>> Hyper metabolic. This is hyper metabolic

is kind of this energy distraction you

were talking about like there's more

energy being burned here. Normal

metabolic is you know you use 100 units

of energy for the brain and this let's

say this brain region 100 units of

energy is what this brain region needs

to just sustain normal healthy

functions. Uh if there's a problem with

the mitochondria or if there's a problem

with you know the cell communicating

with the synapses right the cells talk

to each other through these things

called synapses. uh if there's a problem

now the the that part of the brain is

going to need to do more work to

compensate uh and then we know something

happens with neurodeeneration and

Alzheimer's is inflammation

neuroinflammation that basically means

there are some cells in the brain that

are trying to heal the brain and part of

that healing process is kind of a stress

response locally and then that stress

response leads to the secretion of

little proteins we call cytoines and

then it's basically those cells saying

something's wrong. We need to fix this.

So that costs energy. So you have those

cells that get activated. They they

secrete those proteins to say please

help. You know the we need to

reestablish homeostasis. We need to

reestablish normal healthy balance. But

that process of reestablishing of

healing costs energy just like when

you're post exercise your muscle invests

energy to to become stronger. So in that

kind of early phase hyper meta

metabolism is when you spend more energy

hyper uh function some people have

called it and then eventually it seems

like those brain regions get tired out

and then they become hypom metabolic so

they burn less energy. So if you look at

the brain of someone with Alzheimer's,

there are these regions that are that

burn less energy and energy is so

central to everything including

cognition, right? In order to have an

idea and to be conscious of that idea,

you need to burn energy. So the the

brain kind of burning less energy in

later stages kind of reflects this lack

of function. You know, the the it's

difficult to remember, you know, old

memories. It's it's remembered. It's

difficult to to make associations. it

becomes difficult to plan in the future

um and to regulate your emotions and you

know a lot of people with dementia end

up having kind of mood issues. They

become really depressed and it

>> is this is this why they call it type

three diabetes because I've just heard

that phrase quite a lot recently.

>> Yeah. And so my hunch is that

Alzheimer's and dementia more generally

is a disorder of energy and specifically

it's a disorder of you know increased

energy resistance. So there's type three

diabetes comes from the fact that when

the brain gets sick, right? And symptoms

of dementia start to appear like loss of

memory and mood and depression and that

constellation of symptoms. When you look

in the brain, it's burning less energy,

but it's also harder for glucose to get

inside the brain.

>> It's less efficient.

>> It's so there's yes a loss of efficiency

but an increased resistance, right? or a

decrease in conductance for energy for

glucose for example to get inside the

brain to be processed and and be used.

>> And why might that be?

>> Because you're pushing too much glucose

on the system.

>> Oh, okay.

>> If you load up the system all the time

with with glucose, with sugar in the

blood and glycemia is high, you have

diabetes perhaps. This is all the time

like pressure pushing energy onto this

the system that's like really delicate

and it's not like jacking the the

voltage on your lamp that eventually you

know is going to catch fire. uh we are a

slow burning fire right like the inside

of our our cells you have the electrons

flowing and when there are sparks flying

it damages the mitochondria it damages

this damages that and that increases

that's what aging is aging the the most

basic mechanism of aging including brain

aging that leads to Alzheimer's is the

accumulation of little damage little

mutations little defects little

imperfections and as the imperfections

accumulate the system becomes less

efficient insulin resistance basically

And diabetes refers to the fact that

muscles but also the brain can has the

capacity to say I I can't anymore like

glucose too much for me too much

resistance too much you know damage that

I that I'm exposed to. So if you're a

muscle cell and you want to protect

yourself against this excess energy

pressure right from the glucose from the

from the electrons uh you can become

insensitive or resistant to insulin. So

then you you take the the receptors that

are sitting on top of the surface of the

cell, you pull those out, right? So then

the cell no longer is sensitive to

insulin. So then the body's like whoa,

like glucose is way high. What you a

normal healthy body releases insulin,

floods the blood, insulin goes to the

surface of uh of your muscles and then

says take in the glucose because there's

too much glucose in the blood. It's

we're going to damage the brain. We're

going to damage the eyes. We're going to

damage the nerves. So muscle please take

in that glucose. But when the muscle is

overwhelmed and the mitochondria are

starting to be uh you know at capacity

in terms of how much energy they can uh

resist and and and flow then they shut

down the valves right so the muscle

cells become insulin resistant and then

glucose intolerant and that protects the

mitochondria in the muscle cells. Uh but

then gluc blood glucose uh starts to

increase. So the next step in this

cascade is well if there's too much

energy in circulation too much sugar too

much fat what what can we do with this

and that's where fat stores you know

adeposity uh comes in so obesity

is a protection mechanism against excess