Work from Home

But uncoupling in mitochondria basically means uncoupling oxidative respiration, burning of fuel from producing ATP

And it's been known about since the 1970s. And so I use a kind of a fun ogy in the book about the Mito Club and the electron transport chain in mitochondria

But I'll stop there because we'll get back to that. This is already so fascinating because this is turning it on its head because you just said the thing

We want to turn you into an efficient fuel burning machine, an efficient fat burning machine

And now, but I love this ogy. And I know you got to use this more often and flesh this out as you talk with more folks

We're exclusive, by the way. I got the book early. I might have got one of the first copies

and also this is one of the first times that you're actually talking about this

on a big platform so folks really listen in closely when you gave this ogy with being

a Prius or Ferrari if we use that as an ogy for the bodies that we want you know it's just

like I'm trying to have that you know I want a Prius hump on my shoulders versus being something

sleek and fast and dynamic and attractive. You're actually inefficient at burning fuel

You're, quote, wasting a lot more of the fuel that you're taking in due to this mitochondrial

uncoupling phenomenon taking place. And so there's this really sneaky thing because

the researchers in that study you mentioned, they said that the twin who was overweight or obese

had quote lazy mitochondria. And you also mentioned this earlier too. We've got different pathways

We got with the mitochondria, we've got beta oxidation. We've got cellular respiration. It's

not just this one thing. And we tend to think like we got to fuel, give the mitochondria this

particular thing, but we're kind of missing the point because here's where we talk about ketones

This is the role that ketones actually play in this mitochondrial uncoupling. Let's talk about

that? All right so let's first of all try to accept that what I've said so far is

true. I can assure you I don't make this stuff up and it is backed up with really

great research that I didn't do. So I'm trying to figure out well wait a minute

ketones are produced primarily when you're starving to death and yes they're

They're a great way to keep your brain, you know, online while you're waiting for your next meal

They're produced during a ketogenic diet, and they're produced under extreme exercise

But if ketones, in fact, are telling mitochondria, who are starving to death, to waste fuel

you go, wait a minute, that makes absolutely no sense. If I was designing an organism and there's no fuel, there's no food coming in, I'd want to design my mitochondria to hold on to every last ounce of calorie to become profoundly efficient at turning those calories into energy

Because, you know, if they don't, I'm dead. but then there's an obscure paper that just twisted my brain and just spat it out by martin brand in

the year 2000 and it's a very simple title anybody can google it it's called uncoupling to survive

and he said and the proof is actually in the pudding if you're starving to death

ketones should instruct mitochondria to protect themselves at all costs, because without mitochondria

we won't exist. They are our power plants. So ketones instruct mitochondria, rather than

becoming efficient, to number one, waste fuel, waste fuel, because making ATP is really damaging

to mitochondria, and I go into why this is. Producing energy is hard work, and it damages

our mitochondria. So as strange as it seems, if you want to keep your mitochondria in as good a

shape as possible, you don't want them to do much work. So ketones still have mitochondria to waste

fuel that means uncoupled number two simultaneously ketones which are signaling molecules tell mitochondria to make more of themselves and that's

called mitogenesis and the cool thing about mitochondria is that mitochondria have their own DNA and so they can actually make lots of mitochondria

within a single cell without the cell dividing and so ketones actually tell

mitochondria okay each of you don work so hard but I want you to get five of your buddies online so that the five of you now each of you don have to work as hard but the five of you now will make as much energy as the one guy did before So it like you know having five horses on a sled rather than one horse on a sled The horses have to do less work Number three what ketones do is tell the mitochondria to repair any damage

because we've got to keep you guys pristine because we don't know when we're ever going to get something to eat again

and protect yourself at all costs. so in this simple paper brand

said this is actually why ketones work and it's exactly the opposite of why

anything anybody thinks it now when he's subsequently done and here's the kicker

if you look at super old people or super successful healthy animals

they have the most uncoupled mitochondria you look at 105-year-old people, they have the most uncoupled mitochondria compared to anybody else

So now you go, wow, I kind of want to uncouple my mitochondria. Are there other ways to do this

And that's the purpose of unlocking the keto code because it turns out there's a whole bunch of easy

cool ways to do it. This is phenomenal. Phenomenal. So we're activating the creation

of more mitochondria, right? We are creating a situation where we're repairing our mitochondria

which again, you said they're getting damaged in this process. Basically, it's a good ogy of

they're doing a workout, but not getting a chance to heal in a sense. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And in a way, the more you actually make them do a

hard workout, the more damage they do. And you and I both know, me and you probably by experience

if you don't have rest and repair days, and LeBron is a perfect example of this right now

if you don't have rest and repair days, I got news for you, the damage will rapidly show itself

right? In one way or another. And so we know this now about mitochondria. And if you like

the mitochondrial theory of aging, which I like a lot, uh, then you, your mitochondria keeping

them in tip top shape is really one of, of the keys to successful aging

I love this. So, you know, our mitochondria are very special. You know, this is a big part of

us being the humans that we are is thanks to these little remarkable organelles. Let's talk

more about them. How many mitochondria do we have? Like how many do we have in ourselves? How many

do we have in general? Well, you know, this is kind of fun because most of us in high school

biology, you know, you'd see a picture of a cell and there'd be a mitochondria, which kind of almost

look like a radiator. Mitochondria are engulfed bacteria, from what we can tell, that were engulfed

two billion years ago that made eukaryotic cells. And mitochondria, in exchange for food

and a place to live, generated copious amounts of ATP for the cell. To give you an example that I

talk about later in the book, there's really essentially two ways to generate energy from

sugar or other things. One's glycolysis, which most of us know as fermentation. So for every

molecule of glucose, you get two molecules of ATP from glycolysis or fermentation. A mitochondria

can take that same molecule of glucose and make 32 molecules of ATP

Now, talk about a return on investment. But in exchange for being that just powerhouse of converting calories into energy

damage is done 24 hours a day. And that damage really rapidly adds up

Now, we have some damage control systems that I talk about. I call them bouncers in the Mito Club

And the Mito Club is the hippest, hottest place to be. It's where all the 20-somethings and some of the millennials are trying to get into

And the Mito Club is what's called the electron transport chain, where we take sugar or fats and convert them into ATP

And this process is hot, it's steamy, and you got all these protons and electrons and oxygen molecules pushing and shoving, wanting to couple up to produce energy

That's where the word coupling comes from. And, you know, people are drunk, people are horny, their hormones are flying

And so there's bouncers in these clubs to kind of put the lid on everything

And it turns out there's only two bouncers in mitochondria, despite what everybody has been convinced of

And they are melatonin and glutathione. They are the only two mitochondrial antioxidants

This idea that we ought to swallow antioxidants and they gonna help our mitochondria is so old and incorrect It amazing So there only two bouncers in the club melatonin and glutathione And we talk

about melatonin if time permits, because it's not a sleep hormone, folks. And you sleep

not to go to sleep, but you sleep to produce melatonin to repair your mitochondria. And it's

so cool. It's amazing. This is remarkable. Like we've definitely, we absolutely must talk about

this, you know, these bouncers a little bit more. And so within the context, so this, this cellular

club atmosphere, do we have like a hundred of them in our cells or like, Oh yeah. Yeah. So we

actually, some of our cells like muscle cells, brain cells have thousands of mitochondria in

individual cells. Some cells have very few, but the real guys who need power have

thousands of mitochondria, so it's nothing like what we see in our picture

books. In fact, a lot of people have heard about brown fat, and I go into this

extensively, there's brown fat, there's white fat, which is our main storage fat

and then there's beige fat, and that beige fat is white fat that's being

transformed into brown fat. Now brown fat gets its name from the fact it is so

packed to the gills with mitochondria that it actually looks brown under the

microscope. And that gets me to my second point. Brown fat produces heat and we've

known that for years that for instance hibernating animals produce heat from

their brown fat. They make heat by uncoupling mitochondria. And it's the release of some of

these agents, like extra protons, from making ATP that actually produces heat. And fun fact

you and I sitting here right now, 30% of everything that's heading into our mitochondria

is uncoupled from making ATP. 30% of the calories at rest. And that's because in the process of wasting these calories

we actually produce heat as the process of wasting calories. And to go back to the club ogy, for instance

so it's hot and steamy in there. There's fights breaking out. There's a lot of coupling that's going on that shouldn't be going on

There's a lot of guys, let's call them protons, who are missing out on coupling with oxygen

And eventually, a lot of these protons get pissed off. And they go, I'm out of here

I'm going to go down to a club down the street. Unfortunately, normally, the way our mitochondria work, there's one door in and one door out

And the door out is the way we generate ATP. It's literally a revolving door

But we have built into our mitochondria emergency exits, and they're controlled by uncoupling proteins

Now, there's five of them that were discovered in the 70s. And what happens is if things get pretty crazy, these protons push the emergency exits open, and they go, ah, I'm out of here

And it feels good to breathe again. I'm heading down to the next club

I'm tired of this club. And so it's opening up these emergency exits that it's what actually ketones do to our mitochondria

And it's it's really fascinating how beautifully designed this was if we just pay attention to how the design works

Yes, man. You know, the uncoupling protein one, for example. And again, you just mentioned we got five, but this reminded me of some research that I saw

This has been a couple of years ago now. This study was using MRI technology, fMRIs, and looking at the parts of the body that were lighting up based on different substances that they were giving test subjects

And they found that when folks were drinking coffee, brown adipose tissue sites on the body were lighting up

And they were linking this to something happening with uncoupling protein one

And so, as you mentioned, brown fat being so dense in mitochondria, it gives this brown appearance

and you know even though these they could be considered essentially weightless we have so

many mitochondria that it actually makes up a notable amount of our biomass as a species

correct correct but here's the rub our brown fat ratio is not that high especially in adulthood

for the average american that's the key for the average american because that ratio can be

influenced by our lifestyle. And this is another kind of power house opportunity for us to not

necessarily, again, we're burning more energy in the old mindset, but we're wasting energy

We're kicking off energy through this process of thermogenesis by our mitochondria being able to

do this magical work and ketones play a big role in this. So let's link this together now with

you've touched on a few things on how we can influence this process

but I think there's one more critical building ingredient, which is the role that our microbiome plays in this

Because you said that our mitochondria itself or themselves are essentially bacteria that have integrated with our quote human tissues or human cells And we created this kind of symbiotic relationship through our evolution Now there

so much science being dedicated to our microbiome. And it's just like, all of this is linking

together and you're really helping us to flesh this out. So let's talk about how our microbiome

and mitochondria are tethered together. Yeah. So these literally, it's the sisterhood

as I call them. So we actually inherit all of our mitochondrial DNA from our mother

And we don't get anything from our father. Sorry, guys. And we actually inherit all of our microbiome

initially from our mother. Our mother basically takes a crap on us on the way out, and many of

you have been suspicious of this, and I can confirm it. And so our mother actually seeds us

with her mitochondria genome and her microbiome, and so they literally are linked. And for years

we were very suspicious that the microbiome talked to the mitochondria because they literally were sisters

And for years it was postulated. And a professor from Paris, Marvin Eddies, who I talk about in the book

years ago used to tell me that, number one, anyone who thinks polyphenols are antioxidants

just, you know, I don't have any time for you. It's not true. And number two, he was the first

one to tell me, he said, look, they, the microbiome talks to mitochondria. They control

mitochondria. And I go, well, you know, where's, why haven't we discovered these? He said, just

trust me, we will. Well, he was right. The first postbiotic was nitric oxide and it got the Nobel

prize and nitric oxide originally was discovered from the microbiome we now

know that there are a ton of language a language that the microbiome talks to

the mitochondria and I profiled this in the last book and I bring it back in this

book and they're called postbiotics they're either called gaso messengers or gasotransmitters. And your microbiome has to have prebiotic fiber, soluble prebiotic fiber

to eat. And in the process of eating this fiber, the microbiome transforms this into these

postbiotic gaso messengers. And one of the coolest of them is butyrate. So butyrate, butyric acid

Butyrate just happens to be a mitochondrial uncoupler in its own right. But butyrate is

actually a substrate for beta-hydroxybutyrate. And anybody in the ketone world knows about BHB

which is beta-hydroxybutyrate. And so the more butyrate you can produce, believe it or not, the longer you live, the healthier you are. And as I talk about in a

sidebar in the book, butyrate and other of these short-chain fatty acids are actually incredible

cancer suppressors, and they're called histone deacetylase inhibitors, and it's okay, don't

worry about it. But these things actually prevent cancer cells from growing and dividing

And so butyrate is really good. Number two, there's another short-chain fatty acid that almost

everybody's heard of but has no idea why it's so important and that is vinegar acetic acid

vinegar is another short chain fatty acid as a product of fermentation and this goes on in our

gut all the time but it also goes on in fermented foods and as i point out in the book fermented

foods have nothing to do with you eating healthy probiotics in the fermented foods but everything

to do with the fact that you're eating a short chain fatty acid, acetic acid that, oh, by the way

uncouples your mitochondria just like ketones do. So surprise, surprise, the benefit of apple cider

vinegar or balsamic vinegar isn't some magical mystical thing. It's actually uncoupling mitochondria

And since you brought it up, coffee contains polyphenols, and we'll do that next

But the reason most of us get a warm feeling when we have a cup of coffee, even an iced coffee

is because the caffeine and the polyphenols in the coffee are both major mitochondrial uncouplers

And they do so in brown fat, among other things. And that's why the brown fat lit up on the functional MRI

More amazing episodes just like this one. Watch now. Take your olive oil, mix in some MCT oil

and then use your dressing, apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and use that on your dressing

on your salads