Are you tired and worn out?
Do you have sore muscles, fatigue, and brain fog?
If so, you might have metabolic burnout!
Imagine if you could find a way to tune up your metabolism, increase your energy levels, think clearly, and feel less achy.
Imagine if you could prevent diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson's disease, and dementia.
Imagine if you could heal fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Imagine if you could get to the roots of aging, slow the whole process, and eliminate most age-related diseases.
These aren't just fantasies.
All these things are possible--if you give yourself a metabolic tune-up.
You might have heard of the rats fed high doses of resveratrol, the plant compound found in red wine. But did you know that those rats lived 30 percent longer than their peers -- the equivalent of an additional 120 human years -- even though they ate a bad diet?
In fact, they even became fitter and lost weight even while eating a poor quality, standard American diet.
How could they eat high amounts of bad food and not exercise, yet still become fitter AND live 30 percent longer than the average rat?
One word: MITOCHONDRIA -- the source of your energy.
The resveratrol protected and improved the function of the mitochondria through its effects on special master aging genes.
So what are mitochondria and what do they have to do with having more energy, losing weight, and living to be 120 years old without any disease?
Today you will learn the answer to that question. And I will provide you with eight tips you can start using today to give yourself a metabolic tune-up and boost your energy metabolism.
The key to more energy lies in providing your mitochondria with the right environment to thrive. When you do, you can boost your energy metabolism. Doing this is the sixth of the 7 Keys to UltraWellness, and it is absolutely essential if you want to obtain optimal health.
So let's look at what mitochondria are and what they do.
What Are Mitochondria?
Mitochondria are the little factories in our cells that take the foods we eat and the oxygen we breathe and convert them into energy. That energy is called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, and it is used to support every function in our body.
Each cell holds hundreds or thousands of mitochondria; they are found in greater amounts in active organs and tissues such as the muscles, heart, and brain. In fact, we have more than 100,000 trillion mitochondria in our bodies, and each one contains 17,000 little assembly lines for making ATP.
Why are these are these little energy factories so important to your health?
The answer is simple: Mitochondria are the place where metabolism happens.
When your mitochondria aren't working properly, your metabolism runs less efficiently or can practically shut down.
Problems occur because these powerful energy producers are VERY sensitive to damage.
And when they are damaged, you suffer all the symptoms of low energy--fatigue, memory loss, pain, rapid aging, and more.
Fatigue is the most common symptom of poorly functioning mitochondria, and it is the reason we tend to poop out as we age. We add constant insult and injury to our mitochondria, and this causes them to break down and stop producing energy.
The main way your mitochondria are damaged is by uncontrolled oxidative stress. That may sound complicated, but in reality we are all familiar with "oxidative stress" even if some of us don't know what the term means.
Oxidation is the rust on our cars, the brown color that appears on an apple when cut and exposed to air, the rancid vegetable oil in our cupboards, even the wrinkles that form on our skin.
What most of us don't realize is that our own tissues are rusting, our own fats are going rancid, and our brains are melting as we go about our daily life.
What starts this process is some insult -- too many calories, smoking, a sunburn, exposure to toxins, anti-nutrients, sugar, and more -- that tips the balance, starting a chain reaction of cellular and tissue damage that leads us down the long road to weight gain and chronic illness.
The ultimate outcome of oxidative stress and the resultant loss of energy is death!
But the good news is that we can counteract the damage by giving ourselves a metabolic tune-up.
Let me explain ...
What Is a Metabolic Tune-up?
Dr. Bruce Ames, a renowned scientist from the University of California, Berkeley, has spent the last decade discovering how we can give ourselves a metabolic tune-up.
In one study, he gave two compounds to old rats who were tired, wouldn't get on their treadmill or swim very far, and couldn't find the cheese in the maze. These compounds make mitochondria run better, boosting metabolism.
They are alpha-lipoic acid and acetyl-L-carnitine.
Overnight, these old rats became young rats. They got onto the treadmill, swam long distances without fatigue, and could easily find the cheese in the maze, just like their young, healthy counterparts.
How could that happen?
Well, Dr. Ames simply gave the cells the raw materials they need for optimal function. That's it!
You can do this too, and the process is very simple ...
First, find the things that damage your metabolism and mitochondria, then eliminate them.
Second, give your body the things that help mitochondria function optimally.
Here's how you do that.
Eight Tips for Giving Yourself a Metabolic Tune-up
The first step to giving yourself a metabolic tune-up is locating and eliminating the causes of damage to the mitochondria:
• Eat less processed food, junk food, sugar, and empty calories. In fact, you should really avoid these things altogether.
• Detoxify by getting rid of environmental and internal toxins.
• Cool off the inflammation in your body.
• Balance your hormones.
Once you've done that, you need to boost your mitochondrial function and provide the mitochondria with the correct environment to thrive:
• Try interval training, which increases the efficiency and function of your mitochondria, and strength training, which increases the amount of muscle and the number of mitochondria.
• Eat whole, real, colorful plant food. That's eight to 12 servings of fresh vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, and whole grains every day. These foods are full of antioxidants and phytonutrients.
• Take mitochondria-protective and energy-boosting nutrients such as acetyl-L-carnitine, alpha-lipoic acid, coenzyme Q10, N-acetyl-cysteine, NADH, D-ribose, resveratrol, and magnesium aspartate.
• Increase your intake of omega-3 fats to help build your mitochondrial membranes.
Taking care of your mitochondria and giving yourself a metabolic tune-up will allow you to increase your energy, lose weight, and age well. It is a cornerstone of creating lifelong vibrant health.
Now I'd like to hear from you ...
Have you experienced burnout and fatigue? What was that like?
What do you think about the idea of giving your metabolism a tune-up?
Do you believe that supplements can help you optimize biological function?
Please let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
To your good health,
Mark Hyman, MD
Mark Hyman, M.D. practicing physician and founder of The UltraWellness Center is a pioneer in functional medicine. Dr. Hyman is now sharing the 7 ways to tap into your body's natural ability to heal itself. You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, watch his videos on Youtube and become a fan on Facebook.
Follow Mark Hyman, MD on Twitter: www.twitter.com/markhymanmd
Christiane Northrup, MD: The Magic of Magnesium: A Mighty Mineral Essential to Health
My comment from here in Hawaii: Have y'awl noticed how many (not decrepit) old people eat and hang out at McDonald's ? Extending that observation as an international phenom, notice their stock performance even in these tough economic times. So before anyone can claim to have the cure answer, there's still alot in the "go figah?" department.
Yes. I was tired and stressed out all the time. I joined a gym and started working out. Now I am in pain from lifting weights but it is good pain :-) and my stress level is much lower even though I am going thru financial crisis.
What do you think about the idea of giving your metabolism a tune-up?
I would love to give my metabolism a tune up but it is difficult in my fast paced life. I have cut out all sugar, refined carbs and caffeine from my diet but I have to eat out and I try to order salads. All the restaurant dressings seem to have sugar in them :-( and all the meat is deep fried and has breading on it. (I live in the deep south). I wish restaurants served sugar free lemonades. All they have is unsweetened ice tea or diet cola which both have caffeine :-(
Do you believe that supplements can help you optimize biological function?
I believe supplements can help but I am at my limit on how many pills I want to take everyday along with multi vitamins, heart burn meds, allergy pills etc. I can't keep up if I have to add more :-(
Antoine, had discovered the oxygen theory. With his wife Marie (who had painted Franklin's portrait to replace the one destroyed by British soldiers in Philadelphia in America’s Revolutionary War) Lavoisier completed the first oxygen/carbon dioxide metabolic experiments. Not only does breathing oxygen promote internal biological combustion -- giving off the CO2 that they had measured -- but we age by burning out from oxygen consumption.
Dr. Hyman doesn't discuss age when commenting on "giving yourself a metabolic tune-up". Surely he can recall from medical school that human studies involve age as an inclusion or exclusion criterion.
Giving people hope of postponing aging with the 7 Keys to UltraWellness may be a virtue. But even though Lavoisier didn't discuss mitochondria (they hadn't yet been discovered yet), he was correct.
Lavoisier didn't know about singlet oxygen free radicals that promiscuously extract electrons from virtually anything (even from mitochondria). They slowly degrades everything from our RNA, DNA, and all forms of cellular structure. But he did know that over time, oxygen causes us to age.
Even Dr. Hyman's 7 Keys to UltraWellness cannot forestall Mother Nature's singlet oxygen causing us to grow old. But perhaps the regimen can help us get there a bit more gracefully.
"The idea of giving oneself a metabolic tune-up" sounds very trendy. I believe people who find this idea appealing will also find your blog appealing. Your program for this "metabolic tune-up" is largely a restatement of traditional medical wisdom: balanced diet, regular exercise, drugs in moderation if you must. These suggestions alone represent a significant departure from the typical American convenience-heavy diet, stress-heavy career, and sedentary leisure time.
I believe that there are some supplements that may enhance general health, but I doubt their effects are as dramatic as basic diet and exercise. I believe there is a huge amount of hype and sheer misinformation about supplements in general, and I subscribe to the skeptic's doctrine that "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence". Lipoic acid and L-carnitine may be longevity wonder drugs, but I wouldn't know that without reference to compelling, replicated scientific studies.
What I "believe" about the value of supplements is immaterial. What's far more important to me, and what should be of primary importance to any medical journalist, is that replicable scientific methods produce compelling evidence of health benefits for humans.
However, you will also find that this research, contrary to what Dr. Hyman seems to want to imply, is not new, nor is it connected to the more recent poorly-documented trends regarding supplements. I began taking the antioxidant combination about ten years ago, when I first read of Dr. Ames research. If you take a look at my posting history here, you'll see that I am NOT a fan of snake-oil.
we all get tired. We all work too hard. alpha-lipoic acid and acetyl-L-carnitine aren't going to change that, all the rats in the world notwithstanding.
30% more human life would be an additional 20-25 years, allowing the average American to live until 100-105 at best. Not an additional 120 years.
It really hurts much of your argument to slip into hyperbole.
Here's my father-in-law's secret to living past 94 years:
Low cal diet and, no alcohol, no cigarettes. Not wine or any other tobacco.
He lived for months on cereal and cheese puffs and soda, so I'm not sure whether processed food is so much the problem as how much we dump into our bodies.
He was addicted to percosets for over 20 years from his mid-forties to his late sixties, then he dropped them cold turkey. He still believes in the power of pills to cure everything. He once asked for a pill to help him feel less dizzy. Two of his current meds have a side-effect of dizziness.
He never really eats vegetables, though he does like soup and will eat them in that. But raw? never.
He NEVER liked to exercise and spent the last 5 decades sitting in a chair or on the couch.
The only explanation of his longevity, as I can see it, is he doesn't eat much, whether it's good food or junk. And he never smoked or drank. Ever.
While he smoked for sixty years now, he doesn't recommend it.
Tell me how you are different from a snake oil salesman.
R lipoic acid, carnitine, and CoQ10 WORK. They are very effective.
And BTW, snake oil is also an effective medicine and it has been used for thousands of years in chinese medicine. Snake oil is the richest natural source of the omega 3 fatty acid EPA. There is more EPA in snake oil than fish oil.