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Mitotherapy Breakthrough: Supercharging Your Cells ⚡️| Science Corner with David Friedberg

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Mitotherapy Breakthrough: Supercharging Your Cells ⚡️| Science Corner with David Friedberg

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203 segments

0:00

So mitochondria are the powerhouse of

0:02

the cell as Tim just told us, educated

0:05

us, right? So every cell has hundreds of

0:07

mitochondria and mitochondria are what

0:09

are called organels. They have their own

0:12

DNA. In fact, evolutionarily

0:15

mitochondria were bacteria that

0:18

basically ended up in the symbiotic

0:20

relationship with what became our cells.

0:22

So we each have mitochondria, hundreds

0:25

of them in each one of our cells. Each

0:26

mitochondria has its own nucleus and has

0:28

its own DNA. And the mitochondria make

0:31

the energy that the rest of the cell

0:32

uses. That energy is called ATP. And it

0:35

eats up glucose or it eats up ketones if

0:37

you're in ketosis. And it uses that to

0:39

make the ATP. So every cell in our body

0:41

gets its energy, which is what it uses

0:43

to function from the mitochondria. And

0:47

so there's been a lot of research into

0:49

the relationship between mitochondria

0:51

and aging and that dysfunctional

0:53

mitochondria as they start to break down

0:55

and stop working and have damage may

0:57

actually be a key driver for many

0:59

diseases that we experience as humans

1:01

including many cancers, Alzheimer's,

1:04

Parkinson's, ALS, features of autism,

1:08

muscle tissues being weak, etc. So as

1:11

the cells get older and the mitochondria

1:13

stop working, we make new mitochondria.

1:15

But over time, the DNA degrades and the

1:17

mitochondria become less effective and

1:20

there are fewer functional mitochondria

1:22

per cell. The cell stops working right

1:24

and eventually the organism stops

1:26

working, right? Have you have you

1:27

learned anything about the connection of

1:29

creatine to mitochondrial health? It's

1:32

part of um some of the processes, but

1:35

there's some separate research on this,

1:36

but it's definitely worth spending time

1:38

on. People are crazy about hitting five

1:41

grams or 10 grams of becoming like a

1:44

trend. Yeah, I think it's Oh, yeah. I

1:45

know. Five grams. Yeah, something like

1:46

that. It's trending on Twitter. I think

1:47

it's kind of like a meme or a joke in

1:49

addition to being I don't I don't think

1:51

it's a joke. Is it is it But it does it

1:54

is there any science that backs that up

1:55

or not really for mitochondria? There

1:58

are questions on this like do you want

2:00

to focus on things that are increasing

2:02

biogenesis which is creation of new

2:04

mitochondria? Does that create a better

2:06

benefit on the creatine work? I've read

2:08

some of these papers. I actually tried

2:10

it for a while. I personally had a

2:14

allergy to it which is kind of rare but

2:17

happens but anyway we can talk about it

2:20

further. So so one of the key things was

2:22

um there were three papers that I wanted

2:24

to just highlight that kind of follow an

2:26

interesting theme. The first one was

2:27

from 2023 from WashU in St. Louis and

2:32

this paper, Nick, if you could just pull

2:34

up that image

2:35

of mitochondria being transferred. These

2:39

folks identified and demonstrated that

2:41

mitochondria can actually transfer from

2:43

one cell to another. So, if you've got a

2:45

cell that's got damaged or dysfunctional

2:48

mitochondria, they've identified three

2:51

mechanisms by which mitochondria can

2:53

move into a cell that needs more

2:56

mitochondria that are working and are

2:58

more functional. That's something that's

3:00

been theorized for a long time. People

3:01

have said, "Oh, well, we think

3:02

mitochondria transfer." But there wasn't

3:04

really evidence of this. So, as of two

3:06

years ago, these guys provided very good

3:08

evidence of mitochondria that we can now

3:10

put into cells. If it's floating around,

3:12

it can make its way into another cell

3:15

and as a result, it can rejuvenate or

3:17

provide energy to a dysfunctional cell

3:19

which might improve dysfunctional tissue

3:22

or improve disease. The second paper was

3:25

done um last month out of Columbia

3:28

University. And this was the first

3:29

mapping of the mitochondria in the human

3:31

brain. And so these folks created 703

3:35

tiny cubes of brain from a person that

3:37

passed away, a 54 year old donor. And

3:40

then they analyzed the mitochondria in

3:42

each of those cubes. And they used that

3:43

to make a map of mitochondria in the

3:45

brain. And what it showed was that

3:46

different parts of the brain, different

3:49

cells had different amounts of

3:50

mitochondria and different mitochondrial

3:52

function, which actually starts to

3:54

highlight how that difference in energy

3:56

production in different cells in

3:58

different parts of the brain may

3:59

actually cause some of the things like

4:00

memory loss or speech impairment or um

4:04

as we age, the fact that we end up

4:06

being, you know, kind of forgetful or

4:08

start to lose some of our capacity. that

4:10

the mitochondrial dysfunction in the

4:12

brain might actually be the key driver

4:14

of that aging um

4:16

symptomology. The third paper which just

4:19

came out came out of a team at Sha Jang

4:22

University in China. So what these guys

4:25

did which was really incredible is they

4:27

took stem cells. So stem cells that they

4:29

got out of human blood and they took

4:31

those stem cells and they figured out a

4:33

way to treat the stem cells that those

4:35

stem cells would start to make an excess

4:37

amount of mitochondria than they

4:39

normally would make. In fact they were

4:41

able to get those stem cells to make

4:44

854 times the number of mitochondria

4:47

that those cells would normally make.

4:49

And those mitochondria were on average

4:52

5.7 times more efficient at making

4:55

energy, ATP. So they created highly

4:57

energetic mitochondria and they made a

5:00

lot of them. And the idea that we can

5:02

put mitochondria into our body or into

5:05

tissue in our body to heal it or repair

5:07

it has been something that folks have

5:09

been trying to do research around for a

5:11

long time. But the limiting factor is

5:13

access to enough mitochondria. So this

5:16

mechanism that they developed where they

5:17

could take stem cells, make copies of

5:19

the stem cells, make lots of

5:20

mitochondria and then they isolate that

5:22

mitochondria and use it as a therapeutic

5:24

tool and they did it in cartilage that

5:27

was damaged and they were able to heal

5:28

that cartilage. So um this is a group

5:31

that does bone and and tissue repair

5:34

studies, but they applied the

5:35

mitochondria directly into the area

5:38

where there was damage to the bone and

5:39

the bone grew back and it actually

5:41

improved the healing in an incredible

5:43

way. So this this opens up the door to

5:45

this whole new therapeutic modality, a

5:47

new type of therapy called midotherapy

5:50

or mitochondrial therapy that based on

5:52

the series of papers that we're seeing

5:54

coming out recently, I believe could end

5:56

up becoming a really incredible um new

6:00

therapy that may ultimately lead to the

6:02

treatment for many diseases that we're

6:04

kind of dealing with right now. So, I

6:05

just wanted to kind of like this be uh

6:07

immediately applicable to say people

6:09

with sports injuries, you know,

6:11

meniscus, knees, ankles. You start to

6:13

think about those bones, spurs, chips

6:16

that basketball players, football

6:17

players go through. Would that this be

6:19

like the lowhanging fruit for this

6:21

technology? Yeah. I mean, what they did

6:23

this in and I think this was published

6:25

in a research magazine called Bone or

6:27

something. Bone and tissue or something.

6:29

Yeah. But they did I'll let my

6:30

subscription lapse. I got to thank for

6:32

reminding me. They did it in a in a

6:34

model a mouse model of osteoarthritis um

6:36

and it repaired this osteoarthritis. But

6:38

that's exactly right. And so that's

6:40

tissue where you can using a microscope

6:42

you can actually see the healing

6:43

happening. But you could see this being

6:45

applied for example uh to cerebral

6:47

spinal fluid where you can basically

6:49

increase the mitochondrial the energetic

6:51

mitochondrial production uh that finds

6:53

its way into maybe neuronal cells into

6:56

neurons in your brain and improves um uh

6:59

your brain function. or you could put it

7:02

into damaged hearts after heart attacks

7:03

and improve heart function. So there's

7:05

all these theories about how you could

7:06

use mootherapy as this becomes possible

7:09

to now produce lots of mitochondria and

7:11

use it as a therapy that can then be

7:13

applied to lots of disease states. So I

7:15

I I I think there's going to be a bit of

7:16

a blossoming of research in this area of

7:18

mitotherapy.

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