The Problem with Processed Foods 3 - Mitochondrial Dysfunction

Metabolic Problem of Processed Foods #3 Mitochondrial Dysfunction

Mitochondrial dysfunction sounds like it's a big mouthful, but it is at the heart of all diseases. Big claim.

You need mitochondria to make energy. Without them, you lose about 90% of your energy-making capacity. So, you want to make them happy. Now, they are designed to survive at just a tiny trickle of energy coming through, and then leap up to a 10,000 fold increase in just seconds. That's pretty impressive. Faster acceleration than a Tesla. Mitochondria make energy by separating electrons and protons in separate spaces, and keeping them in separate spaces until you need ATP. They do that by taking advantage of the inherent stored energy in glucose or fat. Those energetic electrons get jammed onto NADH and don't really want to sit still. If NADH can't pass them on the whole mitochondria shuts down.

If your mitochondria are working properly, you match the energy output to the energy input. Your cells are happy. Your electrons in the mitochondria have someplace to go because the energy they represent is matched to the energy you are burning.

What happens if your mitochondria are slightly old and beat up, a little low in their key building blocks? It's harder to keep those electrons sequestered. More escape leading to more oxidation. That was last week's email. You get oxidation, damage to your cell by labels on the cell that it is getting old and your immune system should do something to terminate it.

But a bigger problem is lurking from processed food. You get calories too fast, from too many directions. The funnel of fuel coming into the electron transport chain gets overloaded. When you eat finely refined grains and free sugars, you flood the mitochondria with too many sources at the key nexus of energy production, Coenzyme A (made from Vitamin B5, pantothenic acid). It's the shuttle that puts carbon fragments into the citric acid cycle to stoke the electron transport chain, or when it gets overwhelmed, to push it off to fat production. Guess what happens when you eat refined sugar and white flour: aka, a donut? You aren't burning ATP so you don't need any more energy. But there's all this fuel. Your Coenzyme A pushes it into making lipids. You get fatty liver or fatty pancreas. And if you get lots of fructose, you do it twice as fast. Some 50% of American's have fatty liver.

If you have a bigger tummy, feel fatigued a lot of the time, and feel achy and washed out, you likely have mitochondrial dysfunction.

www.What will Work for me. You can change this. It's not that hard to do once you see the big picture. You can't afford to eat refined foods. Sugar in particular is extra wicked because it has more fructose in it. Cut the sugar. Ban any sugared drinks. Then cut the refined flours products. Eat whole foods that take time to digest, resulting in your liver getting energy much more slowly. Make sure you have fiber in the mix. Then, burn some of those calories with exercise. Finally, free up your mitochondria by fasting. That cleans out the fuel lines in your mitochondria. You can test your own fatty liver by getting an SGPT or ALT. If it's over 25, you probably have fatty liver. If your AST or SGOT is up, you need a GGT test and if it's up, you really need to get an evaluation of your fatty liver. And you need to get off sugar, asap. Do all those. You can send me an email in about, let's say, 3 months, telling me your fatty liver is better. Get your AST down to 20.

References: Metabolical, Wikipedia, Frontiers in Endocrinology, Annual Reviews of Pharm, Gastroenterology, Am Jr Roent,

Pop Quiz

1. Mitochondrial dysfunction is more simply defined as?                                       Answer: freezing up the mitochondria with too much fuel arriving too fast, forcing your mitochondria to make fats so fast, you can't get them out of your liver. You don't even have time to export them out of your liver. You get fatty liver.

2. What's the simplest way to diagnose fatty liver?                                          Answer: Get an AST on a chem panel. If it's over 25, you got game. Time to stop your favorite forms of fructose.

3. Which makes mitochondiral dysfunction faster, glucose or fructose.                             Answer: Fructose is at least twice as fast.

4. How come fruit doesn't lead to fatty liver as much?                                                       Answer: Fructose is nature's candy and is not a good way to lose weight, in general. But it does have fiber built in to it. Fiber is magic. Eat a diet of 40 grams of fiber a day and your fatty liver will go away. Slowly, but away.

5. What's wrong with flour products?                                                                             Answer: when you grind grains up you lose the protective effect of fiber that slows down the delivery of fuel to your liver. The burst of calories that rush into your system is just plain too hard on your metabolism. You can tell. You just have to take a nap....