Full Transcript Introduction to Ari Whitten and the interview topic 0:07 Welcome back to the Heal Your Brain Masterclass. 0:10 I'm your host, Doctor David Jockers. And today 0:12 I've got the honor of interviewing Ari Whitten, bestselling author. 0:16 We're talking all about the cell danger response, mitochondrial function, 0:20 and healing with this concept of horror myths that you're going to learn 0:24 about a little bit about Ari. 0:26 He is the founder of the Energy Blueprint. 0:29 He's the author of the bestselling book The Ultimate Guide to Red Light Therapy, 0:34 as well as the bestselling book eat for Energy How to Beat Fatigue 0:38 and Supercharger Mitochondria for All Day Energy. 0:41 And Ari is a tireless researcher who has obsessively devoted 0:45 the last 27 years of his life to the pursuit of being on 0:48 the cutting edge of the science on health and human energy optimization. 0:53 And you can find his podcast programs and supplement formulas 0:56 at the energyblueprint.com. 0:58 And again, we're talking about in this interview the cell danger response. 1:03 We're going to talk about mitochondrial function and healing with warm misses. 1:06 So you're going to learn about what is the cell danger response. 1:08 How does it lead to chronic disease. 1:10 We're going to talk all about the mitochondria 1:12 a deep dive into the mitochondria as the nervous system of the cell. 1:16 And we're going to talk about key triggers for the cell danger response 1:19 and chronic inflammation in general, and how to properly stress the body 1:24 to improve stress resilience and enhance healing. 1:27 Guys really in for a treat here. 1:29 So without further ado, let's go into this interview with Ari Whitten.
What the cell danger response is 1:32 Well, Ari Whitten? 1:33 Always great to connect with you and, always enjoy our conversations. 1:37 And one of the main topics I love talking with you about 1:40 is the cell danger response. 1:42 Because really, not many 1:43 functional practitioners or conventional, I mean really conventional doctors. 1:47 This isn't even on their radar. 1:48 And most functional practitioners aren't even really aware of it, 1:52 or at least not able to communicate it effectively. 1:55 But this is a it's really the way that we need to start 1:59 looking at complex chronic illness, chronic inflammation, and it's essential 2:03 to really understanding physiological processes in our body. 2:07 And so let's break this down. 2:09 So danger response and its relationship with chronic inflammation. 2:13 Okay. 2:14 So that's a big question. 2:15 Let's see where to begin. 2:18 The cell danger response is 2:21 it's a model a hypothesis. 2:24 And a way of conceptualizing what's going on 2:28 physiologically in health and disease states. 2:32 And it comes from, researcher and MD, PhD, who runs a lab 2:36 for mitochondrial medicine 2:37 at the University of California, San Diego, named Doctor Robert Navajo. 2:41 And I think about ten years ago, he published 2:45 sort of the seminal paper that was called The Cell Danger Response. 2:50 And this was the first outline of 2:55 this model, this way of understanding, disease and health processes. 2:59 And, and he, he puts this really 3:01 at the center of the vast majority of disease processes. 3:05 He's since published a number of papers since then, developing this model, 3:11 adding new layers of insights to it, also testing it, you know, testing lots 3:15 of, of things related to it in his lab in, at UCSD. 3:20 And I think the most 3:21 recent paper, came out in 2023, which was titled, 3:25 mitochondrial and metabolic Features of Sally, Genesis and the Healing cycle. 3:29 I particularly like this because cell eugenicists or Soludo Genesis, 3:33 which is the genesis, the creation of health as distinct 3:37 from pathogenesis, the creation of disease processes, 3:42 which is the focus of really the entire entirety of, of modern 3:46 medicine, is a big focus of mine at this moment. 3:50 So, the basic idea of the cell 3:53 danger response has a lot to do with mitochondria. 3:56 Okay. 3:56 Mitochondria are, in 3:59 Doctor Navios words, the central hub 4:02 of the wheel of metabolism. 4:06 The metabolism is a word that most of us kind of associate with, like weight loss. 4:11 And you know how many calories we burn. 4:13 But the actual meaning of that word that's resting metabolic rate, right. 4:18 And that word has been has sort of morphed into metabolism. 4:21 But the true meaning of the word metabolism is actually 4:25 all of the biochemical reactions that occur in your body, like basically 4:31 everything that's going on in your body, everywhere in your body is metabolism. 4:35 And, what what Doctor Navajo is saying is that mitochondria 4:40 are the central hub of all of this, of everything 4:44 that's going on in your body, which is 4:46 this in itself is a really important thing to understand, because 4:50 the way 4:51 we all learned, like you and me and all of our friends and colleagues, 4:55 we all learned about mitochondria starting, 4:57 you know, in grade school and in high school and in college 5:00 and in graduate school, in physiology and in medical school. 5:04 All all of these things, 5:06 it was taught to us as really just the powerhouse of the cell. 5:10 That's the thing we got to remember on our exams. 5:13 We learned the electron transport chain. 5:15 We learned how mitochondria turn, fuel 5:18 carbohydrates and fats, ketones into energy in the form of ATP. 5:24 But really, they're framed as these sort of mindless cellular energy generators 5:28 that really all they do is they take in fuel from our food and they pump out ATP. 5:33 And that's kind of you learn the different process of NAD and fad 5:38 H and, you know, this whole electron transport chain stuff and CoQ10 5:43 and blah blah blah and ATP synthase and it pumps out ATP. 5:47 But really the whole thing at the end of the day is, is really they take in fuel, 5:50 they pump out energy, they're mindless cellular energy generators. 5:54 And what Doctor Navios work did with the cell danger response 5:59 was synthesize a huge body of evidence that has been accumulating over the last 6:04 2 or 3 decades, 6:06 from researchers all over the world on the other roles of mitochondria, 6:11 like all these other things that might occur 6:14 that we've been discovering that mitochondria do. 6:16 And it turns out they do a lot, of different things in our body. 6:20 And they're really important to almost everything that you could imagine. 6:25 And you can 6:25 you can learn this really quickly by sort of googling, any medical concept 6:30 you can think up or any disease you can think up and mitochondria 6:34 and you'll probably find a whole bunch of papers on that. Now. 6:38 So the, the, the, 6:41 the simplified idea of the cell danger response is really that, and I'm removing 6:46 a lot of the complexity here intentionally for the sake of understanding. 6:50 But the basic idea is that mitochondria actually have two major roles. 6:54 One is the story that we were all told 6:57 in our education, which is energy generators.
Mitochondria as energy generators and cellular defenders 7:01 Okay? 7:02 They are these things that they do take in fuel. 7:05 They pump out energy. 7:06 Okay. 7:06 That's one major role that mitochondria have. 7:09 The other major role that they have is in cellular defense. 7:13 And it turns out that they are basically functioning as the canaries in the coal 7:19 mine of our body. 7:19 They are these sort of exquisitely sensitive environmental sensors 7:24 that are constantly taking samples of what's going on 7:28 inside the cell, in the environment to perceive the environment. 7:33 And they're asking the question, 7:36 is it safe for us to produce energy? 7:39 Okay, they're trying to get a picture of whether the body 7:43 is under threat or under attack in some way. 7:46 And if it isn't, then they're going to operate in 7:50 what Doctor Navajo calls peacetime metabolism, 7:52 and they're going to produce energy in abundance. 7:55 And everything's great. 7:56 However, to the extent that they pick up on danger signals, on threat signals 8:01 that the body is under attack in some way, and we can talk in detail 8:06 of what what that means and how it how it's sensed. 8:10 To the extent that they pick up on the signals 8:12 and to the extent that those signals are perceived to be an overwhelming threat 8:19 that surpasses their capacity to deal with that threat, 8:23 then they shift from energy mode, from peace time metabolism 8:26 into war time metabolism, into the cell danger response. 8:32 And what that cell danger response is all about 8:36 is fighting off and combating the threat 8:41 and protecting the body as much as possible from that threat. 8:45 And what what happens in this state? 8:48 The first phase of the cell danger response, 8:51 which is really the most important phase, this is this is sort of the crux 8:55 of what the cell danger response is, is it 8:58 really revolves around, okay, we're battening down the hatches. 9:01 We are trying to decrease the amount of signaling and communication going on. 9:07 We're shutting down cellular energy production. 9:09 We're throwing off lots of oxidative stress. 9:12 We're creating lots of inflammation to signal for our immune 9:15 system cells to to come in to this area, which might be the whole body 9:21 or might be systemic in the blood, or might be localized to a particular area. 9:26 We're signaling for the immune system via oxidative stress, via 9:30 inflammation, to attack, to defend the body and combat this threat. 9:34 Okay. So, as an analogy, 9:37 imagine that, 9:39 you know, you're in your house and, 9:42 you're preparing dinner, you're chopping vegetables 9:44 and you're making dinner for your kids, and then, criminal breaks 9:48 and puts, puts a gun to your head, says, 9:50 give me all your money, give me all your valuable stuff. 9:52 You're not just going to keep chopping vegetables and preparing dinner as normal. 9:57 You have to to stop doing that. 9:58 You've got to deal with the threat. 10:00 So to to the extent that the body is under attack 10:04 and under threat, it's turning down the dial on all of the normal 10:10 healthy metabolic processes and energy production in particular, and switching 10:15 to a mode of defense, wartime metabolism and combating that threat. 10:20 So it's important to understand these two modes 10:24 energy production mode and defense mode. 10:28 The cell danger response are mutually exclusive to the extent 10:32 you're doing one, you're not doing the other. 10:35 Yeah, it's a great explanation. 10:36 I think, about the mitochondria as the nervous system of the cell, 10:41 basically like the brain and nervous system. 10:42 And so we used to think they just had a motor function, 10:45 kind of like your nervous system tells your arm, you know, your bicep to flex. 10:49 But we know the nervous system was constantly taking in input, right? 10:53 And adapting to the environment around it. 10:55 And that's basically what the mitochondria are doing. 10:57 They have an affair and efferent or a, a a sensory and motor function. 11:03 And they're adapting to basically give us the greatest possible survival advantage. 11:07 And in some cases that means turning up oxidative stress. 11:11 In fact happens often turning up oxidative stress, 11:14 which is a precursor to inflammation and turning up inflammation. But 11:20 that should be for a short period of time 11:23 until we complete the healing cycle 11:26 and return back to a peacetime physiology. 11:29 But there are many factors that can keep us in this wartime physiology. 11:34 And when we're stuck in that, when we when we have an incomplete 11:38 healing cycle, we're stuck in this wartime physiology, 11:41 that's when we end up with, over time, chronic inflammatory conditions. 11:46 And so what are the things where some of the main factors that, hey, 11:49 that was that was a great book. 11:51 That was a great follow up to everything I explained. 11:53 That was like the the next layer of what I was going to explain. 11:56 We're like tag teaming this. 11:58 That's why I've been studying this for a while now too. 12:01 And, you know, credit to you as well. 12:02 You're one of the people that turned me on to the saw danger response. 12:06 And as you know, 12:07 once you go down this rabbit hole, you know, it's really fascinating. 12:10 And it changes the way you view how the body adapts. 12:13 And so it's something I've been studying and really doing my best to try to be able 12:16 to communicate as well. 12:18 Awesome. 12:18 You're doing a great job. 12:21 Great. 12:21 So let's go into things that can keep us stuck in that cell. 12:25 Danger response 12:27 and incomplete basically you know we need to complete the healing cycle. 12:30 If we don't what obviously that that's going to lead to chronic inflammation. 12:35 So what keeps us stuck in the cell. 12:37 Danger response okay. 12:39 So you know, there's there's a simple and short 12:42 answer to this, and there's a longer, more complex answer. 12:45 And there's a whole lot of nuance 12:47 and potential complexities that could be involved as well. 12:51 The very simple and short version is if the stressors 12:56 that are inducing the state of cell danger response in the first place 13:02 are continually present without letting up, 13:05 then you can expect the cell danger response to be more persistent 13:09 or chronic, or the body to get stuck in that place. 13:12 So as an example, you know, we can think of the cell danger 13:16 response, the normal inflammatory process 13:18 in the context of, let's say acute and acute injury. 13:21 Like you're playing soccer, you sprain your ankle, you've got inflammation 13:25 and swelling and redness, and you've got an inflammatory response in that area. 13:29 Immune cells are activated to to take care of that, and repair the damage. 13:34 Or the same is true like in the context of, common cold or flu or Covid or, 13:39 you know, in the context of an infection, you got this transient activation 13:43 for several days, maybe a couple of weeks, to deal with the threat. 13:47 And then you have resolution 13:49 and this is the cell danger response phase two and phase three. 13:53 And then ultimately getting back to health and normal function. 13:58 So this this is a cyclical process health okay.
Why chronic stress keeps the body stuck in danger mode 14:02 Now we've got to deal with a threat. 14:04 So danger 14:04 response one cell danger response phase two three and back to health okay. 14:08 And that's that's designed that that's how 14:11 this system is designed to function and functions 14:15 very well in the context of acute stressors, injuries, infections, 14:20 most things that we're we are designed ancestrally to deal with. 14:26 Now this picture. 14:29 So in the modern world this picture changes. 14:32 And we sometimes have different stressors 14:35 that we can be exposed to that are relatively chronic or persistent. 14:39 So for example, if we've got, heavy, you know, heavy metals, 14:43 exposure that stays stuck in our body for a long period of time. 14:46 If we are chronically getting exposed to mycotoxins from the place we live, 14:51 or if we're getting exposed to other toxins from our food, 14:54 from our water supply, from the air we're breathing constantly. 14:58 And we are not escaping that, you know, if it's sort of 15:01 just a chronic, never ending, unrelenting onslaught of stress 15:06 that the body is trying to deal with, we can't expect it to return 15:10 to health and normal function because it's still trying to deal with those threats. 15:15 So it hasn't had the time and the space to be removed 15:18 from the sources of stress to be able to recover. 15:22 So that's the very simple version of it is, as long as you have 15:27 these stressors 15:28 that have triggered you into the cell danger 15:29 response in the first place, still present in your life, 15:32 you can expect to stay in the cell. Danger response. 15:36 The more 15:37 complex answer to this is we have to. 15:41 I'll explain two models of 15:44 ways of understanding conceptualizing disease. 15:46 So one is called the Allostatic model. 15:51 Allostatic load model of health and disease. 15:53 And this this is the dominant model, the way that most people 15:58 in functional medicine and natural health tend to understand health and based. 16:03 The basic idea is 16:05 the more we have total body stress load 16:08 from toxins, from sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm disruption, 16:13 from psychological stress, from all sources, from relationships, 16:18 from our job, from, you know, traffic jams, from whatever we're dealing with. 16:22 The more we have a poor diet, the more we drink alcohol, 16:24 the more we smoke, the more we, sort of get all the the fundamentals 16:29 wrong in the way that we're living and the environment we're in. 16:33 The more we have these stressors that are, 16:37 impinging on our body's ability to maintain homeostasis. 16:42 And this is basically called allostatic load or total body stress load. 16:47 And at a at a certain point at a certain threshold, 16:51 when those when that allostatic load gets big enough, 16:55 the body stops being able to maintain homeostasis. 16:59 Okay. 17:00 And then and then we have the beginnings of symptoms and disease 17:04 and our physical decline. 17:07 Okay. 17:07 And that's that's a really good, useful, 17:11 and highly accurate model and way to understand human health. 17:15 But it doesn't go quite far enough. 17:18 And there's a better model that is not very well known. 17:24 Outside of geoscience circles, geoscience 17:26 is the study of human aging, the study of aging in general. 17:30 And this is called the Homo dynamic space model of human health. 17:34 And basically the whole geodynamics space model incorporates 17:37 everything from the allostatic load model for the most part. 17:42 But it adds one layer to this to to the discussion, 17:45 which is what is the organism's stress buffering capacity. 17:51 So resilience. 17:54 Yes, exactly. 17:55 So the allostatic load model generally says okay, we've we've got, 17:59 you know, these stressors, these stressors cause disease. 18:03 What do we do to fix the situation? 18:05 We do our best to remove these sources of stressors on the organism. 18:09 Great. Awesome. 18:10 However, what's missing from this picture is resilience through resilience 18:15 and the the the ability to resist these stressors 18:19 without being damaged by them is also central in this picture. 18:24 And the more that you understand what resilience actually is 18:28 physiologically and how the modern world affects it, the more you realize that 18:34 physiological resilience is actually just as big of a player 18:38 in this discussion as all of these different stressors of the modern world. 18:42 So what we really have, and I'll tie this back in to the cell danger response, 18:47 what we really have is, yes, we've got a modern world, an environment 18:51 that have a high allostatic load, that strain, 18:55 the body's ability to maintain a state of health and homeostasis. 18:59 And we've also got a modern world and a modern lifestyle 19:03 that drives loss of physiological resilience 19:07 in numerous of the systems of our body that are critical 19:11 in resisting the negative effects 19:15 of these stressors, the allostatic load. 19:18 And what that does is it shifts the balance to make us much more easily 19:22 overwhelmed by these stressors in in our life and in our environment. 19:27 And when if you remember what I said earlier 19:31 when I was describing the cell danger response, it's when the mitochondria 19:34 perceive themselves to be under an attack, under attack 19:37 to a degree that they don't have the capacity to deal with. 19:41 And that was an allusion to physiological resilience. So 19:46 that picture, 19:48 more allostatic load, less resilience leads to a situation 19:53 where we are much more likely to be overwhelmed 19:56 by the stressors in our environment and to be stuck in the cell. 19:59 Danger response. 20:00 So there's two things we have to fix. 20:02 We have to minimize and reduce and eliminate 20:06 the sources of allostatic load as much as possible from our from our life. 20:11 And we have to build resilience back into our physiology 20:16 in order to shift ourselves 20:19 out of this chronic state of inflammation, 20:22 this chronic state of the cell danger response. 20:25 That's great explanation. 20:26 You said that that theory is the homo dynamic. 20:30 What was it? 20:30 The homo dynamic homo dynamic space model. 20:33 Space model. 20:34 And so if we were to put that 20:35 into a math equation, from what I'm understanding, you saying, 20:40 if we 20:40 if it was like a division problem, the, the overall allostatic load or kind of the 20:44 cumulative effect of toxins, infection stressors on our body would be at the top. 20:50 I can't remember what the numerator denominator is. 20:52 So it's at the top. 20:53 Yeah. 20:54 And then it's being divided by your overall stress resilience, 20:59 which would be pretty much determined by the amount 21:03 of healthy high functioning 21:06 mitochondria within the cells of the body. 21:09 I would imagine 21:09 that would be, a big factor when it comes to your overall stress resilience. 21:14 And that would be at the bottom. Right. 21:16 So the so it would be being divided by that. 21:18 And the higher overall number, 21:22 you know, so equal to the higher overall number would be more of in a sense 21:26 the downward pressure causing causing causing you to stay stuck in the cell. 21:31 Danger response developing chronic disease. 21:34 Whereas the lower the number because you have a higher number 21:38 at the bottom, the division number lower allostatic load at the top. 21:44 The more overall resilient your body is 21:48 and the lower the potential for developing chronic illness, 21:52 I believe so, 21:54 and and I say that because I've never conceptualized this, in terms of math. 21:58 Well, that's why we're having conversations like this, you know.
Allostatic load, resilience, and the homodynamic space model 22:01 So I'll tell you, 22:02 I and I certainly understand what you're what you're getting at here. 22:05 And I'll tell you how I think about it. 22:07 So, and I'll give some examples. 22:09 I think I'm going to put that into an infographic and send it over to you. 22:12 Yeah. There are infographics on this. 22:14 If somebody wants to do a Google image search. 22:16 So what the infographics that I like generally show 22:20 are let's imagine that 22:25 we have a line here 22:27 that is our threshold for where we stand. 22:30 So like a picture or a bar graph okay. So 22:35 we have a line here like through the middle of the graph. 22:38 That is our threshold where 22:41 if if we go below that line, 22:44 in terms of our resilience, 22:47 we now have basically 22:51 let's see how I want to explain this. 22:55 This is sort of the critical threshold. 22:57 And if you go under this capacity, this threshold, 23:02 you start to get the beginnings of disease processes. 23:05 Okay. 23:05 So this this this bar represents your stress buffering capacity. 23:10 And if it shrinks to the point 23:14 where it goes below this bar, now you've got the beginnings of disease. 23:18 Okay. 23:18 So mitochondria play a central role in this. 23:21 I'll talk about that in a minute. 23:22 But I'll give another example, because actually this principle extends 23:26 to almost every system of the body. 23:29 And this is actually the subject of the book I've been writing for the last year. 23:33 But you'd be shocked at 23:35 how many different systems of the body this applies to. 23:38 So I'll give one example here. 23:40 There's something in that 23:42 that is in the literature called cognitive reserve capacity. 23:46 It's also called another 23:49 distinct concept in the literature called brain reserve capacity. 23:53 These two things are actually much more overlapping than a lot of the literature. 23:57 Sort of indicates or tries to imply. 24:00 But basically what this is, is the concept that I'm describing. 24:04 It's the homo dynamic space of the brain. 24:07 Now what builds this homo 24:09 dynamic space of the brain, this cognitive reserve capacity 24:13 turns out learning the things builds your cognitive reserve capacity. 24:19 Learning things, learning new things, challenging things, challenges 24:24 the neural circuitry of your brain, much like lifting heavy 24:28 weights, challenges your muscles to grow bigger and stronger. 24:32 And in response, they do grow bigger and stronger. 24:36 The neural the neuronal circuitry of your brain 24:39 literally, structurally grows stronger. 24:43 And this is mediated by a whole number of things different, 24:46 different molecules, dendritic spines, better connections 24:49 between neurons, specific neurons and networks of neurons, 24:53 and the actual physical structural robustness of certain areas of the brain. 25:00 And that 25:01 that's, you know, you can actually see if you do a brain scan 25:05 and this cognitive reserve capacity, 25:09 came to be discovered basically because they found that people 25:12 who had more education in their life, more formal education, were were strongly 25:17 protected from neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia. 25:23 Okay. 25:23 So learning things like going to school and learning things, 25:27 or learning a language or learning a musical instrument or even learning 25:30 physical things like dancing or a sport, 25:34 it creates more cognitive reserve capacity in the brain, 25:38 which actually translates into being able to resist 25:43 a lot of the forces that would otherwise degenerate the brain 25:47 and end up with, with, giving you dementia or Alzheimer's dementia. 25:52 Okay, so if you picture that, that bar graph that I described before 25:57 and here's the cutoff for where 25:59 you start getting Alzheimer's or dementia, 26:03 and somebody with high cognitive reserve capacity 26:07 who has spent a lot of their life engaged in active learning 26:12 and education, is way up here in terms of their stress buffering capacity. 26:16 So they can go many, many more years and, 26:20 and endure a lot more stress on that system 26:22 before they ever get down to that, that threshold 26:26 where they're going to start exhibiting dementia and Alzheimer's disease, 26:29 where somebody with much lower reserve capacity in their brain 26:33 is has a much smaller window of time and much smaller capacity, 26:39 to endure stress on that system before that system degenerates 26:42 to the point where now you're exhibiting Alzheimer's disease and dementia. 26:46 So this this is a spectrum, 26:48 and it is about your physiological resilience 26:51 and capacity to endure stress on that system, 26:54 whether it's biochemical stress, whether it's toxins, whether it's sleep 26:57 deprivation, any, any type of stress on that system, 27:01 your capacity to resist it without being damaged and to resist it 27:08 long enough that it ends up not being the thing that kills you. 27:11 Now, that principle that I just described, again, I'm writing a book basically. 27:16 You know, one chapter of the book is on cognitive reserve capacity, 27:19 but the other chapters are on all the other physiological capacities. 27:23 And the different areas of our body, 27:24 and how they protect us against disease and bolster our health and longevity. 27:29 But mitochondria, as you said, are also central to this story. 27:33 And, this is, a bio. 27:36 Bio energetic reserve capacity. 27:38 And one of the things that we have to understand is, 27:42 basically any type of stressor you can imagine, any type of stress on 27:46 that system is creating a bio energetic stress on that system. 27:50 So whether it's toxins, whether it's sleep deprivation, whether it's even healthy 27:55 things like exercise or learning things like I just described in the brain, 28:00 and all the sources of bad stress and allostatic load, you can imagine 28:03 they are all creating an energetic stress on on the cells of the body as well, 28:09 and the capacity of your mitochondria to meet that and, 28:13 and handle that energetic stress or 28:16 not handle it is a huge determinant of whether 28:20 you will end up with your mitochondria shifted into the cell. 28:23 Danger response. 28:24 So let me let me give you another data point to overlay on this. 28:29 It's been shown in a number of studies 28:33 that the average 70 year old has lost 28:36 75% of their mitochondrial capacity. 28:41 Okay. 28:41 And this is a combination of, of of two things. 28:46 The mitochondria themselves are shrinking, physically shrinking 28:49 to about half the size and the number of mitochondria that are present. 28:54 Purcell are also being reduced to about half to half the size. 28:58 And the combination of those two things, if you do the math, 29:01 since your math guy apparently, better than me, the combination of those 29:05 two things is a loss of 75% of your mitochondrial capacity. 29:10 Now, I hate percentages because it doesn't really do 29:14 this justice to for people to really get this. 29:18 What this means is that if you were at 100% capacity 29:21 when you were 20 and you're now at 25% of your capacity, 29:26 this is like going from a Ferrari V8 engine in your cells 29:30 when you were 20, to a moped engine in your cells when you're 25. 29:35 Do you 29:36 think that that affects your ability to resist and to handle or resist 29:41 bioenergetics stresses to to to resist the forces of stress on that system? 29:46 Absolutely, absolutely. 29:47 It affects it to a massive, massive degree. 29:50 And this is fundamentally why, mitochondrial dysfunction, 29:54 this kind of buzzword, in, in, in natural health now, 29:58 is linked with so many different disease processes. 30:03 Yeah, yeah. For sure. 30:03 I always say 30:05 the quality of your life is going to come down to the amount of mitochondria 30:09 and the quality of the mitochondria, because there's a big difference between 30:13 a senescent mitochondria, which all of us have to some degree, 30:18 and a young, very stress resilient mitochondria. 30:23 There's a night and day difference there. 30:24 And so you may have a certain amount of mitochondria, 30:26 but the high percentage of those are senescent, 30:29 or age dysfunctional mitochondria in a sense. 30:34 Your overall functionality and your stress resilience 30:36 can be a lot lower than somebody that has the same amount of mitochondria 30:40 but a higher percentage of stress resilient, high functioning mitochondria. 30:45 That's right. 30:46 Yeah. 30:46 And and I'm glad you brought that up because. 30:51 I left one key point out of the story that I just told, 30:54 which is as you just imply, the the quality 30:58 and quantity of the mitochondria in our cells is highly malleable.
Mitochondrial reserve capacity and aging 31:02 And this this picture I just painted of losing 75% 31:06 of your mitochondrial capacity as you get older, is actually just 31:11 the average of what normally and typically happens, to most people. 31:16 Okay. 31:17 And what this isn't is 31:20 a claim that quote unquote aging does this to our mitochondria 31:25 in a sort of biologically predetermined way. 31:29 Actually, it's the opposite. 31:31 And here's here's the good news, because you're probably feeling really, 31:34 like this is really bad news, learning that your mitochondria, 31:37 mitochondria and mitochondria capacity decline so much with aging. 31:40 If that's got you feeling down, here's the good news. 31:44 The good news is, when we look at 70 year olds who are lifelong exercisers, 31:49 they have the same mitochondrial capacity as young people do. 31:52 So, this is not a functioning a function of aging per se. 31:58 This is a function of our lifestyle. 32:00 And what's really going on here, in terms of mitochondrial 32:05 size, mitochondrial quantity and quantity is that, 32:10 this is 32:11 fundamentally a product of the way we live and specifically 32:16 the degree of demand we put on those systems. 32:20 So in the same way I could I could tell you, 32:23 and this is much easier 32:24 for people to understand because it's much more outwardly visible 32:27 as soon as things start going down to a smaller level, humans 32:31 kind of make the mistake of thinking, oh, you know, 32:33 this is driven by mysterious biochemicals, and I need to take a drug for this. 32:37 But when it's big and outwardly visible, we have a much more time 32:40 with the logic of understanding things in the proper way. 32:43 Muscles. 32:45 Okay. 32:45 So, with muscles, 32:47 if we challenge our muscles by lifting heavy objects, what do they do? 32:53 They interpret this as a stimulus to adapt to this challenge. 32:57 By growing bigger and stronger. 32:59 It's a survival stimulus. 33:01 So, in basically, they're going in order to better handle 33:05 the challenges of my environment to better survive my environment 33:08 and to be less damaged by the stress of my environment. 33:11 I need to to adapt to these demands 33:14 by growing bigger and stronger muscles. 33:17 Okay. 33:19 The the opposite is also true. 33:22 So and this is the down. 33:24 So I before I get there, this is actually an amazing thing 33:29 if you understand, like if you look at a chair 33:32 or a bicycle or a car or any sort of other object 33:37 in our environment, any inanimate object, they don't do this, okay? 33:40 They don't have the capacity to sense and adapt to the demands on them. 33:45 The more demands you place on those systems, the faster 33:48 they break down and wear out and generate 33:52 humans and living organisms more broadly. 33:55 But humans are especially good at this. 33:58 Have a very have have an incredible, 34:02 almost magical ability to sense demands on the different systems of our body 34:07 and adapt to them, not by degenerating, but by actually growing stronger. 34:12 Yeah, okay. 34:13 And as magical and amazing as that is, 34:16 there is a downside to it, which is the opposite also is true. 34:21 So what happens if you immobilize muscles in a cast? 34:24 Like if you've ever broken a bone, they atrophy. 34:27 Exactly eight weeks later, you go. 34:29 You go to the doctor. They saw your cast. 34:31 You look down at your arm or leg and it's half the size of the other one, okay? 34:34 Because the body similarly sense. 34:36 Well, you know, we only care about survival. 34:38 I guess we don't need these muscles to survive our environment. 34:42 They're not being used. 34:43 So they're just, an energetic liability. 34:45 They're just consuming resources, protein and energy 34:49 without serving any purpose that facilitates our survival. 34:52 So let's get rid of them. 34:54 The same exact principles of growth and atrophy 34:58 also apply at the microscopic level with our mitochondria. 35:02 So when they are challenged regularly, they grow bigger and stronger. 35:06 They engage in quality control processes, 35:09 which is what you were alluding to earlier. 35:11 My autophagy and preventing senescence, improving the actual health 35:16 and function of those systems, growing larger and growing 35:21 more of them from scratch, model a process called mitochondrial biogenesis. 35:26 So you can actually reverse that trend that I was talking about before. 35:29 You can actually increase the number of mitochondria as well. 35:34 But if 35:35 you don't challenge your mitochondria regularly 35:39 and there are physical challenges 35:41 that challenge the mitochondria in different systems of the body. 35:44 Also think of it this way. 35:45 Cognitive challenges also challenge the mitochondria 35:49 of the brain, of the neural circuitry of the brain, in unique ways. 35:52 And there can even be broken down 35:54 further from there of specific types of cognitive challenge to challenge 35:58 the mitochondria in different systems of the brain in unique ways. 36:02 And in response to those challenges, those mitochondria adapt 36:06 by growing bigger and stronger and becoming more numerous. 36:10 The converse is also true if you live a life lacking 36:14 in those stimuli and in those challenges to those systems, 36:18 the mitochondria shrink and atrophy and literally die off. 36:22 So you have fewer of them. 36:23 And as a result of that, you massively decrease your physiological resilience. 36:29 Yeah. 36:30 And so you're talking about of this concept of for medic 36:33 stressors like exercise for example, 36:36 you know, if you do an intense workout like I did today, like you 36:38 probably did today, if I took my blood work right 36:40 while I was doing that right afterwards, it would look like I had a heart attack. 36:44 Massive inflammatory numbers. 36:46 But, you know, 24 hours later, my inflammatory numbers are really low. 36:50 You know, I show all signs of great metabolic 36:52 health, and my system has adapted to create more endogenous 36:57 antioxidant production, better oxidative stress buffering, 37:00 you know, and just a better cell to cell communication. 37:03 All the things that we want for stress, resilience. 37:06 And so but I got the right dose. 37:08 That's the other thing 37:09 with the hermetic stressors, because there's certainly a limit 37:12 where you or I could easily overtrain I've been there before, where we're doing 37:16 too much physical activity, not resting enough, not creating enough, 37:20 you know, not getting enough of the stimuli. 37:23 Like melatonin and, human growth hormone production from good quality sleep 37:29 to where we're not able to adapt and recover effectively. 37:32 And then we're over stressing our system. 37:34 And so we gotta get the right dose of the stressors, like exercise, like learning. 37:40 You know, which 37:40 anybody that's a little bit older, you know, 37:42 you start trying to learn something new, you get pretty easily frustrated. 37:46 So, it is a stressor on the mind. 37:48 And so we got to get the right dose of these hermetic stressors 37:51 to appropriately boost our resilience factor. 37:55 And not too much, but also not too little. 37:58 Yeah. 37:59 That's right.
Hormetic stressors that build resilience 38:00 So, you know, there's there's a number of principles to extend off of that. 38:04 But, one thing to understand is that basically too much like, 38:08 let me put it this way, we have, 38:11 kind of an abnormal 38:13 way of thinking about certain stressors, exercise, 38:17 which we all think of as something that promotes health, is, as you alluded 38:23 to with your blood test results there, a stressor on the body. 38:27 It is a physiological stressor that creates metabolic waste, that creates 38:31 a big spike of oxidative stress and even inflammation in the system. 38:37 It is genuinely a stress on the system if you overdo it. 38:42 As you said, if you overwhelm the system with that stress, it will create harm. 38:48 The the the beautiful thing, though, 38:50 is that when we engage in types of stress 38:54 that are biologically appropriate for us 38:57 because they were historically present in our ancestors 39:01 over, countless millennia, 39:05 what happens is we are uniquely, 39:08 well, well adapted to, creating 39:11 adaptations to that, that stressor that actually make us stronger. 39:16 Okay. 39:16 And this, this is a distinction 39:18 between certain types of stressors that are biologically appropriate 39:21 and were present for the human species for a very long time, 39:24 that we are accustomed to, versus certain types of stressors, like, let's say, 39:29 lots of the modern toxins in our environment, 39:32 that we are not well suited to adapt to, that we, that we have enormous 39:36 difficulty transforming from something bad into something good. 39:40 Exercise is a stress that we can transform from something 39:44 that is, in the immediate term, something bad or potentially bad. 39:48 Into something. 39:50 Over time, when we engage in it consistently and when we engage in it 39:54 at a dose, as you said, that is appropriate 39:57 for our individual capacity, which differs widely between individuals. 40:02 When we get that dose right and we go just a bit outside 40:06 of our comfort zone, just above a slightly above our current capacity, 40:10 we stimulate transient harm, basically. 40:15 But that transient harm is transformed into signals 40:19 that make adaptations that, in the long term, make us stronger, 40:23 healthier, and more resilient to future exposures to stress. 40:27 Yeah, absolutely. 40:28 And that's this idea of higher medic stressors. 40:31 And there's a whole number of different for medic stressors, exercise 40:35 being probably the the number one example that people understand. 40:38 But learning like you mentioned, that's a horror medic stressor 40:41 in our society today. 40:42 You know, a lot of people are doing things like cold plunges, right? 40:45 Getting cold exposure. 40:47 There could be, you know, certain types of breathing, like breath holds or, 40:51 you know, just 40:52 box breathing and things like that that are somewhat of a horror 40:55 medic stressor as well, because we're being exposed to more carbon dioxide. 40:59 You know, so many people are short, shallow breathers. 41:01 And I know you have a whole training on that. 41:03 And so we have fasting as a it's definitely war medic stressor. 41:07 Right. 41:07 Our ancestors would go because they didn't have pantries, right. 41:10 So they would go, at times, long periods of time without without consuming food. 41:14 And their body was able to adapt to it. 41:16 And so time restricted feeding or fasting strategy 41:20 that that can be a hermetic stressor that, if done in the right dose, 41:23 can make us more metabolically fit and stronger, more might, 41:27 you know, obviously help increase the quality and quantity of mitochondria. 41:30 So we have all these types of war 41:32 medic stressors that can help prime us for resilience. 41:36 So where do you recommend people start with, 41:39 you know, some of these different areas that they can focus on. 41:44 Yeah, there's there's so many you mentioned a good list there. 41:47 I would add, sauna exposure to that list. 41:49 Heat. Yeah. Another aspect is actually phytochemicals. 41:52 Very common, extremely widespread misunderstanding 41:56 is that most of the, the beneficial phytochemicals, 41:59 are actually not antioxidants as most people think they are. 42:03 They're actually xeno or medic stressors or xeno for meetings, 42:07 and they stimulate a low level oxidative stress that is transformed, 42:13 much like exercise and many of the other stressors, 42:17 transformed into beneficial adaptations. 42:19 So the spike in oxidative stress is actually transformed 42:23 into an adaptation of, of bolstering and building up what's called the, the, 42:29 the antioxidant response element, which is our internal 42:33 cellular antioxidant system. 42:36 So the more you engage in these types of stressors, 42:39 and really exercise, breath holding, sauna exposure, cold exposure, 42:45 all of these actually create oxidative stress, which is something that 42:49 we all have been taught in most circles to think of as a bad thing. 42:53 But actually, 42:55 interestingly enough, well, 42:57 I'll tell him I'll tell an interesting background story related to that. 43:01 So, about 15 or 20 years ago or so, 43:06 researchers actually decided to study this, and 43:09 they what they did was they they recognized that exercise 43:14 had a whole bunch of health benefits associated with it. 43:17 At that time, of course, it was already known that exercise was very good for us. 43:21 That helped prevent, disease and and so on. 43:25 But it was thought at that time that it's really unfortunate 43:31 that exercise also creates this big spike of oxidative stress 43:34 of free radicals and that these free radicals are damaging us. 43:38 So what if we take antioxidant supplements 43:43 in tandem with exercise? 43:45 So we get all the all the good stuff 43:47 from exercise, all these benefits, reduce risk of so many different diseases. 43:51 But we eliminate the downside of exercise, 43:54 which is the these free radicals, this oxidative stress. 43:57 And these researchers found something unexpected in these studies. 44:01 The more that they supplemented with antioxidants vitamin A, C, E, 44:05 things like that, before, during or after exercise. 44:09 The more that they actually reduced and canceled out and inhibited 44:14 the metabolic benefits of exercise, 44:18 because it turns out that part of the adaptations to exercise, 44:22 a big part are actually adaptations to the oxidative stress induced 44:27 by exercise that oxidative stress is actually a signal to grow that 44:32 internal oxidative antioxidant system, redox system, bigger and stronger. 44:37 So if you take exogenous antioxidants that reduce the oxidative stress, 44:41 you reduce the signal on your internal antioxidant system to grow stronger. 44:46 And it turns out the oxidants are actually a vital 44:49 signaling molecule for mitochondria themselves. 44:53 To detect that, there is a need for, increased bio energetic capacity. 44:58 So all that stuff I was talking about before about mitochondrial 45:01 growth and biogenesis actually depends on oxidative stress signaling. 45:07 Mitochondria have to detect the presence of oxidative stress, which is essentially 45:11 a, a signal that is that is, 45:15 translated by them as, oh, we're being overwhelmed. 45:19 This this stressor is exceeding our bio energetic, production capacity. 45:23 So let's adapt to it. 45:25 To prevent damage, oxidative damage from future exposures to the stress 45:29 by growing bigger and stronger so we can produce more energy. 45:32 So we can handle this bio energetic demand on the system in the future. 45:37 So, you know, those are all wonderful elements. 45:40 There's, 45:43 there's a number of 45:44 psychological aspects to this story as well. 45:47 We create psychological adaptations to mentally difficult things 45:52 in the same way that we create, and the psychological 45:56 as well as neurological, actually at the level of the brain
Final takeaways on malleability, health, and longevity 46:00 and very much the same way that we create, physical adaptations 46:04 and cellular and biochemical adaptations to more physical stressors. 46:08 So cognitive reserve capacity being one of them. 46:10 But there's actually many other dimensions of that as well. 46:13 So the actual resilience to stress is, great. 46:18 Is a neurally mediated in large part, capacity, 46:22 like, what is your psycho emotional reserve capacity? 46:25 What is your level of resilience to handle psychological and emotional stress? 46:29 Courage, willpower. 46:30 These are also neurally mediated capacities that are trainable in much 46:35 the same way that, muscular strength is trainable, via lifting weights. 46:41 Yeah, this is really good stuff. 46:42 I mean, we can go for another hour on this. 46:44 But what I will say is that 46:46 I know the listeners got a ton of value out of this, this interview here. 46:50 And, guys, you can check out Ari and all his podcast, 46:53 his programs, his supplement formulas, Energy blueprint.com. 46:57 I know he's got a great program on breathing. 47:00 Also one on gut health, and he's got a great book as well, 47:02 a couple great books, eat for energy, How to Beat Fatigue, supercharger, 47:06 mitochondria for all day energy, talks about the phytochemicals, 47:09 talks about time restricted feeding all the different. 47:11 A lot of the things that we discussed here just recently. 47:14 And he also has the ultimate guide to red light therapy as well. 47:17 So some great books are, is, you know, one of my favorite people 47:19 in natural health space to talk to you about these ideas. 47:23 And I hope you guys get a lot of value out of this. 47:25 Are you any last words of inspiration here for our audience? 47:30 I would say the 47:30 the, the big principle that I want people to realize 47:34 that really is an extension of everything that I've talked about here, is 47:38 to realize how much of your physiology is malleable 47:42 and plastic, and as a function of your behaviors, 47:47 and you are not as, so much of 47:51 the medical narrative wants to, to push on you 47:54 sort of just a victim of biochemicals floating around in your body. 48:00 The biochemistry that you assess on blood test is hugely a function 48:04 of the structure and function that you have built, that you have built 48:09 in different systems of your body 48:12 and the biggest key to health and disease prevention 48:15 and energy and longevity is building those capacities. 48:20 I love that aria. 48:22 Always a pleasure, my friend. Be blessed.
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