First principles of Energy:

Energy creation is fundamental to life, and mitochondria are essential to energy production. To understand health from first principles, it is essential to understand how the body fulfills this fundamental process. It stands to reason that in order to optimize performance and longevity, one should optimize mitochondrial function.

To optimize mitochondrial function, it’s important to understand how they do what they do. Mitochondria are organelles, or one of many working parts of a cell. A cell can have varying amounts of mitochondria, depending on its function. Organs that require a lot of energy generally have cells with a lot of mitochondria. Through a complex but elegant process, mitochondria generate ATP, a molecule with high energy bonds that can be used elsewhere in the cell to carry out essential processes.

https://www.medspacetime.com/p/mitochondria

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Discussion

The first step in ATP production is breaking down or converting the food we eat to glucose. Glucose is then broken in half and enters the Krebs cycle. The Krebs cycle produces a small amount of ATP, but more importantly two types of byproducts (NADH and FADH2) that are then fed into the electron transport chain to produce more ATP. Making sure the mitochondria have what they need to carry out this process is the first step to health.

More importantly, though, is to make sure we’re not unintentionally impeding mitochondrial function. We can extend and specify the Hippocratic Oath in this instance to “Do no harm to mitochondria.” Unfortunately, there are a number of prescription medicines that do exactly that, but very rarely are the direct effects on mitochondrial function considered when prescribing a medicine. This is a very undervalued risk when contemplating the risk/reward benefit of a medication.

https://www.medspacetime.com/p/mitochondria

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