lots of health experts are talking about ways that you can improve your mitochondrial health for a good reason why because your body contains trillions of mitochondria in all tissues except one your red blood cells and they're responsible for muscle growth and development insulin sensitivity making you feel high energy giving you mental Clarity and focus making your heartbeat making your kidneys function and much much more now in this video we're going to be talking about everything related to mitochondria what they are where they're located what happens when things go wrong and we're going to focus on four foods that not only improve mitochondrial function but can actually make new mitochondria and most importantly if you watch Until the End you'll walk away with a solid understanding of how your blood glucose levels and your mitochondria are deeply connected let's get right into it now I've been studying mitochondria for over 20 years and I'll be the first person to admit that mitochondrial physiology is an unbelievably complex and beautiful science and when you really begin to understand how they function it'll help you lower your blood glucose improve your cardiovascular health and feel like a kid again but before we talk about the four specific foods that can increase mitochondrial number and function let's talk about why you should care in the first place you see mitochondrial dysfunction causes insulin resistance and vice versa it's a chicken and egg relationship that researchers are constantly learning more about insulin resistance and mitochondrial dysfunction are inseparable processes and because mitochondrial dysfunction plays an integral role in the development of insulin resistance and vice versa it's nearly impossible to separate one from the other the beauty of this relationship is that regardless of whether of who is the chicken and who is the egg improving one improves the other and when mitochondria become dysfunctional they take up less fatty acids and less glucose from the blood leading to an accumulation of both of those inside of cells and that disrupts insulin Action Now mitochondrial dysfunction can increase your risk for obesity the metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease that's why it's important in case you fell asleep in high school biology class mitochondria are the vital organel that serve as the powerhouses of human cells they're the primary places where ATP is generated in all cell types they're responsible for more than 90% of all ATP generation inside of your body and they can take up about 25% of a cell's volume and can number anywhere from a few hundred to 2500 per cell without mitochondria human life as we know it is impossible mitochondria are essential organal that make life possible because there's not just some amount of ATP generated in the mitochondria there are immense amounts of ATP in the same way that your house runs on electricity your body runs on ATP you can think of ATP as a currency that all cells make and all cells burn or oxidize to power biochemical reactions every second that you're alive in fact from the moment that you were conceived in utero until the moment that you take your last breath mitochondria have been working hard to make enough ATP to power you from a growing embryo to a developing fetus to a newborn to an adolescent to an adult trillions of mitochondria are generating trillions of molecules of ATP every second that you're alive when you're asleep when you're working when you're watching TV and when you're at the gym and yes when you're having fun how do they make ATP it's a great question they create ATP using primarily glucose and fatty acids as fuel these two fuel sources are uptaken by cells in all tissues except red blood cells once they're taken in they're broken down into smaller molecules then they're sent to the mitochondria to participate in a process known as cellular respiration the end result is a large collection of ATP which can then go on to power Every chemical reaction in the cell now muscle tissue is densely packed with mitochondria and there are three main types of muscle white muscle has the lowest mitochondrial density relying on glucose for ATP production and contains about 100 to 400 mitochondria per cell mixed muscle contains a medium level relying on both glucose and fatty acids to make ATP with about 5 to 800 mitochondria per cell and red muscle has the highest mitochondrial density relying primarily on fatty acids to make ATP with anywhere from 1,000 to 2500 mitochondria per cell now inside each muscle cell mitochondria are located in two separate locations there's this location known as intraop fibular mitochondria and they're buried deep within a muscle fiber and they're used mainly for muscle contraction then there's a sub cirl mitochondrial population and these are located close to the muscle fiber membrane and they're responsible primarily for fuel oxidation and Insulin signaling why are these two populations even important in the first place well I'm glad you asked there was a paper published in 2005 which investigated the effect of obesity and type 2 diabetes on the structure and the function of muscle mitochondria in a small group of about 31 adults they found that the function of these mitochondria closest to the muscle cell surface are responsible for insulin signaling and they were greatly reduced in subjects with typee 2 diabetes and they were Sevenfold reduced in comparison with lean subjects they also found that the number of mitochondria was significantly reduced in subjects with type 2 diabetes and obesity indicating both structural and functional defects now scientists have discovered that there are many ways to stimulate the production of new mitochondria and those ways are number one hypoxia which is oxygen deprivation that can either occur from living at high altitude or or most typically from exercise number two food in the remainder of this video we're going to talk about four specific foods that have the strongest impact on making new mitochondria number three thyroid hormone or T3 it's a powerful inducer of mitochondrial biogenesis and number four cold exposure cold exposure can stimulate the production of new mitochondria specifically in brown Outpost tissue to produce more heat and raise body temperature now let's talk about food because that's the purpose of this video now a review paper published in 2023 compared the effects of many diets on mitochondrial function in both rodents and in humans and it compared the effects of five different diets a high-fat diet a calorie restricted diet a ketogenic diet a fasting diet and a Mediterranean diet so what happened let's take a look at one diet at a time to get a full understanding of the effect that each of them had on mitochondrial function number one the high-fat diet this is defined as a diet containing between 30 and 35 % of calories from fat researchers found that a high-fat diet decreases mitochondrial abundance and contributes to insulin resistance and metabolic disorders not surprising this in turn resulted in decreased ATP production and increased oxidative stress within the mitochondrial compartment in addition high fat diets also resulted in the accumulation of damaged mitochondria interestingly the author stated that a high fat diet is not a common everyday diet for humans but rather an experimental protocol with which to create a dis disas model in animals and mimic the metabolic adaptations that this creates in cellular physiology and remember this diet only had 30 to 35% of calories from fat so I'll let you Ste on that for a while the take-home message a high fat diet impairs mitochondrial function diet number two calorie restriction this is defined as a 20 to 30% reduction in daily calories now the reviewers documented that calorie restriction has multiple effects number one it decreases mitochondrial number number two it decreases mitochondrial enzyme activity number three it increases ATP production number four it reduces oxidative stress and number five it induces a process known as mitophagy which is effectively The Selective removal of damaged mitochondria you can think of this as a housekeeping process in order to keep the mitochondrial Network in good shape the take-home message is that calorie restriction improves mitochondrial Health by creating an interconnected network of mitochondria that share resources and function efficiently to maintain optimal cellular function diet number three the ketogenic diet now researchers included multiple types of ketogenic diets including a classic ketogenic diet a modified Atkins diet or a medium chain triglyceride ketogenic diet the ketogenic diets studied yielded several positive effects and several negative effects the positive effects were that they increased mitochondrial number and mitochondrial function but the negative effects were that they significantly increased the risk for pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes and some papers referenced impaired mitochondrial biogenesis and an increase in cardiac fibrosis which refers to the scarring of heart tissue caused by the accumulation of excess collagen we've talked about this several times before on this channel and it should come as no surprise that the research has clearly demonstrated that a ketogenic diet increases insulin resistance and damages mitochondria in the long term we also wrote about it in the mastering diabetes book and thought that it was in fact so important that we took a lot of time to handdraw a picture that describes this exact phenomenon and what you'll see in this picture is that when there is a lipid droplet in the bottom left of the photo that increases in size over the course of time due to an increased availability of lipids in the blood that lipid droplet can then negatively affect the insulin receptor by signaling to a molecule known as irs1 this is not the Internal Revenue Service this in fact is a molecule that is Downstream of the insulin receptor so as soon as that lipid droplet begins to grow and accumulate in size it negatively impacts the irs1 molecule which then makes insulin receptors less functional as a result of that less glucose enters the cell the mitochondria now are reliant on fatty acids for ATP generation and in the process they end up manufacturing a significantly increased amount of free radicals free radicals are very dangerous molecules that are electronically unstable and the more free radicals that are produced the more inflammatory the entire cell becomes the take-home message is that ketogenic diets yield mixed results and have both positive mitochondrial effects and negative mitochondrial effects simultaneously diet number four fasting this is defined as any dietary approach in which there's a voluntary absence of food for about 12 or more hours per day now researchers that studied intermittent fasting diets discovered that they increase mitochondrial number and activity they increase mitochondrial fision in skeletal muscle meaning that the fasting process induces a selective degradation of damaged mitochondria much like we saw in the calorie restricted state so the take-home message is that similar to calorie restriction fasting actually improves mitochondrial Health by creating an interconnected network of mitochondria that shares resources and functions extremely efficiently now diet number five the Mediterranean diet the Mediterranean diet increases mitochondrial biogenesis and fusion events it increases mitochondrial function in both liver and muscle tissue and researchers suspected that the high phenolic comp of the Mediterranean diet is thought to be the main contributor of improved mitochondrial Health now we're going to talk about polyphenols next because that's the key to understanding how to make new mitochondria using your food but first a take-home message the Mediterranean diet is the optimal diet for mitochondrial health and the reason is because the Mediterranean diet when compared to all of the other diets is the only diet that increases all three of the functions in the top three rows of this image which are biogenesis function and fusion now what exactly are these polyphenolic compounds that are present in high quantities in the Mediterranean diet now polyphenols are a class of antioxidant compounds that have profound effects on human health and are mainly found in fruits vegetables whole grains and beverages made from Plants such as tea Chocolate and Wine now a comprehensive review on the effects of dietary bioactive compounds demonstrates that polyphenols from soybeans cacao beans onions apples blueberries red grapes cinnamon and coffee seeds have measurable effects on mitochondrial function in human subjects which have a net effect of number one increasing oxygen consumption number two increasing mitochondrial function and number three increasing ATP production that's why you came here today to learn about four foods that can increase mitochondrial number now this leads us to food number one soybeans there's a compound known as genistin which is found in soybeans it has powerful effects at increasing insulin sensitivity in the muscle of obese subjects in this experiment researchers divided obese and Insulin resistant subjects into one of two groups the first group was the placebo group who received an inert substance with no active ingredients the second group is the treatment group and they received a daily supplement containing 50 milligram of genestin for 60 days which is the equivalent about of eating about a/4 pound of soybeans per day or 4 o per day what they found was incredible gentine increases mitochondrial number in the muscle of these obese and Insulin resistant subjects in other words genestin increased mitochondrial biogenesis independent of any other variable but these researchers found something that was even more interesting they gave subjects an ogtt an oral glucose tolerance test at Baseline and after 60 days of genestin supplementation in an oral glucose tolerance test patients are told to drink a sugary beverage containing about 75 G of glucose glucose in water and then their blood glucose and Insulin concentrations are measured at the beginning at time equal Z and then 30 60 90 and 120 minutes after consuming that beverage the higher the glucose Andor insulin response the more insulin resistance is present the lower the glucose and/ or insulin response the more insulin sensitive the patient is what they found was that gentine supplementation didn't change the blood glucose values of patients before and after the 60-day experiment but 60 days of genestin supplementation reduced insulin concentrations by 19. 4% indicating that they required about 19. 4% less insulin to metabolize the same amount of glucose that is a very significant finding and well worth exploring in more detail in a future video as if that wasn't interesting unto itself researchers also found that genestin supplementation increased the amount of fatty acid oxidation happening in muscle tissue which suggests that there's an increase in the breakdown of fatty acids known as beta oxidation they also measured a decrease in the amount of triglycerides stored in the muscle of those who supplemented their diet with genestin which is in line with an increase in insulin sensitivity that we just talked about so the take-home message from jestine is very interesting muscle mitochondria love soybeans the polyphenol that you can get very easily from the grocery store every day now food number two cacao beans in addition to the biological effect of genestin from soybeans cacao beans have powerful bioactive properties because they too contain polyphenol compounds one of which is known as epic cakin now Epi cakin is the most abundant polyphenol found in the cacao plant and has been shown to favorably impact mitochondria under both normal conditions and pathological conditions in this study 20 sedentary subjects aged about 50 years old ate dark chocolate for 3 months and their ability to withstand a grueling V2 Max test on a bicycle was tested now I don't know if you've ever done a V2 Max test before but I can tell you from having done it three times that it is one of the most painful and challenging exercise tests that I've ever done now here's a video of me treating myself to a VO2 max test on my birthday a few years ago with a fellow masochistic friend who also likes to suffer now it's a good thing my wife and daughter were there to support me just in case I passed out on the floor when my legs could not take it anymore now when the researchers compared the before and after V2 Max tests per individual they found that 3 months of cacao supplementation increased V2 Max by 2.
8 milliliters per kilogram per minute which is a sizable increase in V2 in the world of exercise physiology data shows that even trained athletes can generally increase their V2 Max by approximately 10 to 15% so increasing a V2 Max by 2. 8 ml per kig per minute on a baseline of 22. 9 is a 12% increase in only 3 months this team also found that the master regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis or the formation of new mitochondria known as pgc1 Alpha was significantly increased in dark chocolate- fed subjects which suggested that improved exercise performance was made possible by increased mitochondrial function in muscle tissue in other words mitochondria in the quadriceps muscle of these subjects increased in number as a result of eating two two squares containing about 100 calories of a Hershey bar for 3 months I honestly wish that all science could be this fun these results are shocking and all these subjects had to do was eat dark chocolate every day for 3 months personally I could think of worse things this leads us to food number three known as Resveratrol well technically speaking Resveratrol is not a food it's a polyphenol that's found in red grapes Resveratrol has been hailed as the compound that can erase obesity off the planet in solve type 2 diabetes completely and research shows that it's effective but it isn't ready to solve The World's health problems yet now studies in humans show that consuming an isolated Resveratrol supplement of about 150 migs per kig per day reduces fasting glucose and insulin and A1C and insulin resistance in patients with type 2 diabetes and it promotes an increase in mitochondrial function in muscle in addition resol has been found to reduce body weight reduce body mass index waist circumference and fat mass and promote a significant increase in lean mass these are massive results but wait a second how many grapes would you have to eat in order to get 150 migs per kig per day in your body for me at 72 kg body weight I'd have to consume about 10,000 mg per day so how many cups of grapes do you think that that would take well as it turns out one cup of red table grapes contains between .
25 and 1. 25 Mig of Resveratrol which means that I would have to eat 13,000 cups of grapes every single day no big deal I mean I do that regularly I don't know about you according to David Sinclair a co-author of a study on a therapeutic potential of Resveratrol he says administering a daily dose to a human weighing about 75 Kg with 100 migs per kig per day of Resveratrol would require about 2.
