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Scientists have proven that there are a limited number of decisions you can make each day before you reach “decision fatigue.”2 Each decision requires energy, and when you’re tired, hungry, or have already made a lot of decisions, you run out of energy and start making bad choices.
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BRAIN WEAKNESS #1: Forgetfulness
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Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a protein that supports the survival of existing neurons in the central nervous system and encourages the growth of new neurons and connections between them. Increasing BDNF through exercise, diet, and strategic supplementation will improve your learning, memory, and higher thinking.
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BRAIN WEAKNESS #2: Cravings
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Any time you consume something that’s toxic or to which your body is allergic, these organs send out an alarm asking for extra sugar to oxidize or metabolize (in other words, to neutralize and/or eliminate) the offending substance—and compete with the brain for glucose. This detox process leads to low blood sugar and results in cravings.
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BRAIN WEAKNESS #3: Inability to Focus
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It gets worse when your brain doesn’t get enough energy. Maybe you overindulged in a few too many beers and all of your oxygen- and nutrient-rich blood went to your liver to help process the alcohol. Now your brain feels like it’s going to die because it has less energy. This is just as stressful to your brain as a tiger, and it signals yet another emergency.
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When the brain is low on energy, it stimulates the release of cortisol (the stress hormone) and adrenaline (the fight-or-flight hormone) to make emergency fuel. The adrenaline breaks down muscle in order to access stored sugar reserves, which in turn signals your pancreas to release the insulin needed to metabolize that sugar. The resultant insulin spike creates an even greater brain emergency, and your brain triggers the release of more cortisol, and suddenly you want to flee! How could you possibly be expected to focus with all that going on?
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BRAIN WEAKNESS #4: Low Energy
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BRAIN WEAKNESS #5: Moodiness/Anger
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Head Points: Don’t Forget These Three Things • Certain foods, products in our environment, types of light, and even forms of exercise can weaken your brain. • All useless stimuli—potential threats, ringing phones, flashing lights, and so on—use energy in your brain. • Forgetfulness, cravings, low energy, moodiness, and inability to focus are all symptoms of low brain energy. Head Start: Do These Three Things Right Now • Stop blaming yourself for running out of willpower—it’s not a moral failing! • Reduce the amount of stimuli in your environment when you want to focus—turn off the phone, limit alerts from your computer, cover the windows. • Make
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Even though you have roughly one hundred trillion cells, a normal person has only about 1.75 ounces (50 grams) of ATP in their entire body at any one time. Each mitochondrial ATP cycle can create about six hundred ATP molecules per second at maximum demand. That means that if you eat 2,500 calories a day, your mitochondria recycle and reuse those 1.75 ounces of ATP so many times that it’s the equivalent of creating four hundred pounds of ATP over the course of the day.
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mitochondria, they’re also in charge of other essential tasks such as transmitting signals between cells, cellular differentiation (the process by which one type of cell transforms into another), and maintaining the cycle of cell growth and cell death.
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From age thirty to age seventy, the average mitochondrion decreases in efficiency by about 50 percent. That means that the average seventy-year-old is
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EOMD was discovered and named by Frank Shallenberger, MD, one of the many lecturers I’ve learned from at the Silicon Valley Health Institute, the anti-aging nonprofit I’ve run for more than a decade. EOMD is defined as the deterioration of mitochondrial function in people under the age of forty. Dr. Shallenberger estimates that about 46 percent of people have EOMD.
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Over time, however, EOMD leads to accelerated cell death and cell loss, decreased cell hydration, increased free radical damage, decreased mental capacity, decreased ability of the body to detoxify itself, and mitochondrial decay—which means the mitochondria are destroyed. EOMD is reversible, but mitochondrial decay is not, so the earlier you can catch and reverse this condition, the better.
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MITOCHONDRIA MISHAP #1: Inefficient Coupling
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Throughout each round of the Krebs cycle, your mitochondria oxidize CoA, creating carbon dioxide and electrons. These electrons “charge up” a molecule called NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), which turns it into nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, reduced (NADH). NADH is then one of the superstar molecules for your energy. Spoiler: there are “cheat codes” you can use to get more NADH! Food comes in, turns into electrons.
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If you have lots of NADH, you’ll like how you feel, because NADH is fully charged with electrons.
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protons leak out, their partner electrons are left alone and useless—just…
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uses oxygen to absorb those lonely electrons. But if the electrons and protons stay lined up on either side of your mitochondrial membrane awaiting their reunion, you don’t need to waste oxygen absorbing the loners. You can therefore measure your coupling efficiency by how much oxygen you use to create ATP. The more oxygen your body uses, the more protons are leaking, and the less efficiently your mitochondria are producing ATP. That makes you less efficient as well. Even worse, using all of that oxygen to absorb single electrons creates free radicals that will damage mitochondria, slow you down, and give you a muffin top. A free radical, also known as a reactive oxygen species, is a molecule with a single, unpaired electron in its outer shell. These unpaired electrons make free radicals highly reactive to other substances and sometimes even to themselves. Because they are so reactive, free radicals can cause unwanted chemical reactions that damage cells. These reactions contribute to many diseases, including cancer, strokes, diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and schizophrenia. Free radicals are also a major cause of aging. Inefficient coupling is one reason that type 2 diabetes increases the risk of…
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suffering from coupling inefficiency, your mitochondria will burn up a lot of oxygen to create ATP. This is unsustainable. Virtually all of the oxygen we breathe is used to produce energy in our cells by burning either fat or glucose. In the absence of enough oxygen to create ATP, your cells can produce energy anaerobically (without oxygen), but it is not as efficient. And, it can cause cancer—that’s according to Otto Warburg, who won the Nobel Prize in…
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When your mitochondria don’t have enough oxygen, they cannot recharge NAD by transforming it into NADH during the Krebs cycle, leaving an excess of NAD. When you have more NAD and less NADH, cellular aging is accelerated. The electron chain transport slows to a crawl, and you have more free radicals and less energy. Free radicals cause swelling in the cell, and the swelling makes the electron transport system less efficient. So…
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MITOCHONDRIA MISHAP #2: Reduced…
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Plan B for when your cells need energy and there’s an ADP bottleneck in production. When this happens, your cells convert the available ADP into adenosine monophosphate (AMP). The problem with AMP is that it normally cannot be recycled. This is precisely why your body doesn’t usually create it. You can think of AMP as disposable energy—inefficient and wasteful. Most of it is lost in your urine, and then you’re back to square one with no energy and no ATP to make it with.
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make a very small amount of ADP directly from sugar by converting it into lactic acid. One problem with this, though, is that it causes lactic acid to build up in the muscles, leading to pain and soreness. The other resulting problem is that it leaves no glucose available for the body to use. This means you don’t have the raw materials to create new ATP. Converting glucose to lactic acid produces two molecules of ATP, but reversing this process to create glucose requires six molecules of ATP. It’s the cellular equivalent of a farmer eating her seeds instead of saving them to plant the next season. In short, inefficiently recycling mitochondria can create a complete metabolic disaster, and even small inefficiencies are going to show in your performance.
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MITOCHONDRIA MISHAP #3: Excess Free…
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Efficient mitochondria not only produce fewer free radicals, they also make special enzymes called antioxidant-buffering enzymes, which neutralize free radicals before they can do any harm. The problem is, these enzymes are made from ATP. When you experience a decrease in mitochondrial function, you end up with more free radicals and fewer of the enzymes needed to neutralize them. In simpler terms, your body is making too many bad guys and not enough of the good guys it needs to…
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MITOCHONDRIA MISHAP #4: Poor…
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Methylation is a mitochondrial process that occurs a billion…
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During methylation, a single carbon and three hydrogen atoms (known as a methyl group) are…
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And it makes cell membranes, including the precious mitochondrial membrane that holds your…
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methylation process also creates amino acids—critical elements of cellular energy production—as well as the ADP that your body converts to ATP. If your methylation process is impaired, so is your body’s energy production. To make matters worse, your body needs ATP in order to methylate. This is yet another…
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During methylation, your body creates an amino acid called carnitine that is essential for breaking down fatty acids to use as an energy source. When you have poor methylation and your ability to create energy from fat declines, you start producing most of your energy from glucose. Because you’re not burning fat efficiently, your body starts storing it, causing you to gain weight. And because you’re making all of your energy from glucose, your blood sugar…
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Mercury poisoning, liver problems, and fluoride can all lower your thyroid hormones, which are essential for maintaining mitochondrial function and efficiency. Your liver converts T4, the main thyroid hormone, to T3, which helps your mitochondria create ATP. If your liver isn’t functioning well, it won’t create enough T3 to make energy efficiently.
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Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis: Lifestyle Interventions for Finding and Treating the Root Cause by Izabella Wentz, the Thyroid Pharmacist.
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Insulin fluctuations signal your body to release the stress hormone cortisol, which inhibits fat metabolism. Your mitochondria start to burn sugar exclusively to create ATP, which is a less efficient energy source than fat.
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Fatty acids are stored in your adipose tissue (the anatomical term for fat) as triglycerides (fats found in the blood). Between meals, your body breaks down triglycerides into glycerol and free fatty acids, generating acetyl CoA, which, you’ll remember, is the entry molecule for the all-important Krebs cycle. This means that if your body cannot efficiently metabolize fatty acids and break down fats, it does not have access to the ideal raw materials to create ATP. Besides your diet, what determines whether
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mitochondria are responsible for all of your steroid hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen. But, in fact, the inner mitochondrial membrane converts cholesterol to pregnenolone, the “mother hormone” that is the precursor to all the steroid hormones made in your body.
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Improving mitochondrial function increases testosterone, and taking testosterone reduces oxidative stress in the brain,2 which is a sign that your mitochondria are working better.
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mitochondria have receptors for estrogen, testosterone, and thyroid hormones. The number of mitochondria you have in some cells is dependent on your testosterone levels3 and growing new mitochondria can come from estrogen.4 But as you age, your mitochondria make less testosterone . . . which means you make fewer mitochondria . . . which means you make less testosterone. Yikes.
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didn’t realize at the time that thyroid hormones cause a rapid stimulation of mitochondrial function right after you take them, and then after you take them for a few days your body starts to grow new mitochondria, and the mitochondria you have get bigger.6
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While the cells in the brain, retina, and heart have the most mitochondria in men—ten thousand each—women have ten times that in their ovarian cells. That’s right—some cells in the ovaries have one hundred thousand mitochondria each.
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Dr. Frank Shallenberger (who discovered and named EOMD) estimates that we actually need 50–100 percent more energy now than we did a hundred years ago to get rid of all of the toxins that are inside our bodies, slowing down our energy production and making us weak.
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Oxidative stress is a sign of mitochondrial problems, and scientists believe it is a cause of many diseases including cancer, ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder), autism, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, chronic fatigue syndrome, and depression. Glutathione is a protective antioxidant that serves as mitochondria’s main line of defense against damage from oxidative stress, but sometimes your body doesn’t make enough of it. There are, however, ways to get your mitochondria to increase their production of antioxidants like glutathione, and you can supplement with it—I do both.
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During autophagy, your cells scan the body for pieces of dead, diseased, or worn-out cells, remove any useful components from these old cells, and then use the remaining molecules to either make energy or create parts for new cells. This janitorial process removes unwanted toxins, lowers inflammation, and helps to slow down the aging process.
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Mitophagy is one stage of the autophagy process. This is the selective degradation of mitochondria.
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Autophagy happens in response to mild stress from exercise or calorie restriction. Cellular stress also activates mitochondrial biogenesis, the creation of new mitochondria.
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Apoptosis malfunction is connected to cancer, autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, inflammation, and viral infections.
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mitochondria hold the signaling proteins that induce apoptosis, so anything you do to boost your mitochondrial function will help you hold on to healthy cells and get rid of the ones that are making you weak. Eating specific foods will also help to induce apoptosis in unhealthy or diseased cells.
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Head Points: Don’t Forget These Three Things • The cells in your brain, heart, and retina have the most mitochondria and are the ones to suffer first when energy demand exceeds supply. • Your hormones, blood sugar levels, diet, and lifestyle all affect the function of your mitochondria. • From age thirty to age seventy, the average person experiences a 50 percent decline in mitochondrial efficiency. Head Start: Do These Three Things Right Now • If you have big problems with energy, have your advanced thyroid hormone levels checked by a functional medicine doctor. • If your energy crashes after meals, check your blood sugar levels either using a home glucose meter or a functional medicine doctor. • Pay attention to your energy dips throughout the day—perhaps you ate something or were exposed to something that damaged your mitochondria!
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One neuron in your brain uses up to 4.7 billion ATP molecules per second.2 When scientists isolate neurons in a lab and give them an insufficient amount of ATP, their functions become unpredictable.3 In fact, neurons can die if they don’t have a constant supply of ATP,4 as everything they do requires massive amounts of energy. So it would follow that if you can increase the amount of ATP produced by your mitochondria, you can enhance the performance of your neurons.
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Neurons contain two different kinds of motors designed to move mitochondria around inside the cell, and these motors also require energy.5 Up to 30 percent of the mitochondria in your neurons are moving around to deliver their energy,6 like backup generators sent on trucks to meet the high demands of an electrical grid and prevent a brownout.
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In fact, a McGill University researcher recently discovered a network of neurons in the prefrontal cortex—your human brain—that is responsible for filtering out visual information and other distractions.8 If this group of neurons isn’t performing efficiently, your Labrador brain remains in a constant state of high alert, ready to respond to each piece of unfiltered stimulation as if it were a threat to your very existence. Of course, being distracted by all of those excess stimuli makes it pretty tough to concentrate on getting your job done.
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We are born with very little myelin, and the process of producing it (called myelination or myelinogenesis) occurs rapidly during infancy.
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A type of brain cell called oligodendroglia (say that three times fast) does the work to form your myelin. Throughout adulthood these cells constantly generate new myelin and replace segments of myelin that break.9
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conduct myelin maintenance throughout your neural networks. And your maintenance worker cells rely on a proper balance of hormones—particularly thyroid hormones and progesterone—to do their job well. In chapter
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thyroid hormones are also crucial for the health and survival of oligodendroglia cells and therefore for the constant rebuilding of healthy myelin.
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progesterone—which we typically associate with female body chemistry, since it’s involved in the regulation of menstrual cycles—signals oligodendroglia to initiate the process of remyelinating neurons. In one study, mice that were treated with progesterone had more oligodendroglia cells that were able to repair more myelin.
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Progesterone is not limited to the female body—it is also present in males and is actually a prerequisite for sufficient testosterone production. If you have low progesterone as a man, your hair falls out, you get fat, and you grow man-boobs. (Trust
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Remember, myelin is made of fat—specifically saturated fat, cholesterol, omega-3 fatty acids, and a few omega-6 fatty acids.
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Cholesterol is essential for cognitive function. Your brain makes up only 2 percent of your body weight but contains 25 percent of your body’s cholesterol.12 Most of that cholesterol is in your myelin, which is one-fifth cholesterol by weight.
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They found that a fasting-mimicking diet promoted myelin regeneration.15
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autophagy, killing the bad cells that were causing damage to the myelin in the first place and stimulating the creation of new myelin.
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In other words, there is a direct relationship between the bacteria in your gut and the myelin in your brain’s prefrontal cortex, and it appears that some gut bacteria actually inhibit neuron function—and, therefore, your mental abilities.
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Brant Cortright, PhD, a bestselling author and expert on neurogenesis, he told me that anyone can increase their rate of neurogenesis by at least five times.
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The hippocampi are also rich in neural stem cells, which give birth to new neurons.
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To create new neurons, neural stem cells divide in two. This division either produces two new stem cells, two early progenitor cells that will later differentiate into another type of cell, or one of each. When a stem cell divides and creates another stem cell, that new stem cell can continue dividing and creating more and more stem cells. If the stem cell divides and creates an early progenitor cell, that new cell then becomes a specialized cell—a cell with a specific job to do, such as an oligodendrocyte cell. Since oligodendrocyte cells are in charge of myelin production and maintenance, this of course means that your rate of neurogenesis has a direct impact on the integrity of your myelin.17 In other words, when you make more neurons, you automatically keep more of your precious nervous system insulation intact without having to do any more work.
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Exposure in your environment to neurotoxins, such as heavy metals, solvents, additives, or naturally occurring toxins from Mother Nature, will slash your rate of neurogenesis and kill off existing brain cells. Many neurotoxins can also change how your neurons use neurotransmitters, chemical messengers that are essential for maximum brain function. Mitotoxins are another type of toxin that harms mitochondrial performance, and these can kill your neurons because your neurons are extra sensitive to fluctuations in energy.
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Two foods that slow the rate of neurogenesis are sugars and oxidized (damaged) fats. When oxidized fats get into your bloodstream, they cause inflammation. That inflammation slows your ability to make precious ATP, chews up the insides of your blood vessels, inhibits blood flow to the brain, and slows neurogenesis to a crawl.
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Too much insulin degrades every organ in the body, including the brain.
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Notably, the area of the brain that suffered the most was the hippocampus—where neurogenesis occurs. Sugar is the enemy of neurogenesis.
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Omega-3 fatty acids have a particularly profound impact on our rate of neurogenesis.
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Polyphenols are like Miracle-Gro for neurons.20
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Chronic stress has been shown to severely inhibit neurogenesis in the hippocampus.21
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antidepressant medications have the opposite effect, boosting the rate of neurogenesis in chronically depressed patients.23 Some scientists now believe that the success of antidepressants is in part due to their impact on neurogenesis.
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Exercise boosts your rate of neurogenesis by increasing the blood flow to your brain and putting your body through short-term healthy stress. It also triggers the release of nerve growth factors that protect new neurons against death.24
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Scientist Michael Kaplan25 discovered that an enriched environment enhances neuron production in animals when he placed test animals in cages filled with interesting toys and monitored their levels of neurogenesis.
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studies show that mysterious cell structures called microtubules are a key part of shuttling mitochondria around in neurons. And recent breakthroughs in biology around the structure of water itself have illustrated how microtubules work.
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Dr. Pollack is editor of the scientific journal Water, and he discovered a phase of water that is not liquid, gas, or solid. This form of water, called exclusion zone water or EZ water, is critical to mitochondrial function and specifically to movement within microtubules. You get EZ water when you drink raw vegetable juices, fresh spring water, or glacial meltwater, and it forms spontaneously when regular water is exposed to infrared light or vibration. Better yet, EZ water forms in your cells when you expose your skin (and eyes, the gateways to the brain) to unfiltered sunlight for a few minutes every day without sunglasses or clothing or sunscreen. Low-level light therapy and infrared saunas can also have the same effect.
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The rats that had sex just once experienced an increase in cortisol, the stress hormone, along with an increase in the number of new neurons in the hippocampus. The rats that had sex fourteen days in a row, on the other hand, did not experience the same increase in cortisol after the first day, but they did continue to see an improvement in their rate of neurogenesis.
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This study offers compelling evidence that sexual experience can enhance our rate of neurogenesis while buffering us against the harmful effects of a short burst of cortisol.
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Your neurons require massive amounts of energy to function and they die when they don’t get it. • Myelin is made of fat and insulates the communication path between neurons. • You can grow new neurons (neurogenesis) at any age, and it is possible to increase your rate of neurogenesis by five times! Head Start: Do These Four Things Right Now • Eat more good fat, particularly healthy saturated fat from grass-fed butter and meat. • Eat a lot less sugar. Sugar reduces your rate of neurogenesis. • Manage your stress. Stress reduces your rate of neurogenesis. • Have more sex, but if you’re a man, don’t ejaculate every day because you’ll waste hormones that are hard to make, along with precious mitochondria.
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In the case of Alzheimer’s disease, inflammation kills off neurons, causing memory loss and other cognitive problems,3 although there are clearly other mitochondria-related parts of the disease, too.
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what happens when inflammation causes the cells themselves to swell? The distance those electrons have to move increases, and your mitochondria have to work harder to make the same amount of energy.
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But we now know that gut bacteria help control what can get through your blood-brain barrier. They do this by creating a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate that helps maintain the integrity of the blood-brain barrier.11 When your gut bacteria don’t make enough butyrate, the blood-brain barrier becomes more permeable, allowing particles into the brain that should be kept out. This, of course, leads to inflammation, as your body attacks the intruders. Don’t worry—there are tricks to get your gut bacteria to make more butyrate, and it’s easy (and delicious) to ingest it from its richest dietary source: grass-fed butter.
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We have learned that mitochondria make biophotons—tiny pulses of light that last for one-quadrillionth of a second. This is part of how they communicate with each other. As it turns out, gut bacteria also make biophotons. Is it possible that your gut bacteria are communicating with the tiny bacteria-derived mitochondria that rule your cells? I think it is, especially because we know mitochondria are sensitive to external sources of light.
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You can’t buy bacteroidetes species probiotics as a supplement, but you can easily generate them by eating foods that contain their natural food source, polyphenols. You read in chapter 3 that polyphenols are antioxidants that help keep newly formed neurons alive. It turns out that polyphenols also do wonderful things for mitochondrial performance, including reducing free radicals and even causing you to grow new mitochondria.15, 16 Since they also feed the good bacteria in your gut, adding more of these plant compounds to your diet or supplementing with them is a no-brainer (ha!).
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swallowed up to sixty rat tapeworm larvae called HDCs (Hymenolepis diminuta cysticercoids) as part of an ongoing allergy elimination protocol to reduce inflammation.
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Dr. Sidney Baker, has pioneered this method of reducing inflammation.
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published a groundbreaking discovery showing that the brain directly connects to the immune system via lymphatic vessels that we didn’t previously know existed.
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We now know there’s a direct line between the immune system and the brain.
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We know that hormone dysfunction causes inflammation, and inflammation causes hormone dysfunction.
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testosterone is an anti-inflammatory18 hormone, while estrogen is sometimes anti-inflammatory but is often pro-inflammatory.19
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progesterone is a hormone present in male and female brains and is required for normal neuron development. Doctors are even using it to help treat traumatic brain injury because it helps prevent neuron loss and regulates inflammation. I took advantage of this effect when I got a mild concussion while writing this book. With a physician’s advice, I took progesterone for a week after the concussion and saw very noticeable improvements in inflammation and cognitive function.
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One of the most important and under-recognized hormones when it comes to your body’s inflammatory response is called vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP). Your body makes VIP in your gut, pancreas, and two important parts of your brain, the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus. VIP protects against inflammation, controls and sends nerve signals, triggers the release of other hormones, and improves brain function, sleep, and glucose control. VIP also has a hand in regulating learning and memory, immunity, and responses to stress and brain injury.20 In short, VIP is critical to proper brain function. When your body is under physical or psychological stress, it makes less VIP than usual and your inflammation rises accordingly.
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when mice are exposed to certain toxins—in this case a toxic mold commonly found in food—their VIP levels drop.21 We also know that humans experience a similar drop in VIP when exposed to environmental toxic mold,
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when animals don’t have enough VIP, their blood sugar and insulin levels rise, and the animals crave sweets.
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Another substance that affects your brain (and muscles) has the very unsexy name mammalian target of rapamycin, which is why it usually goes by mTOR. It’s not technically a hormone, but it plays an important role in controlling inflammation by regulating cell growth, cell survival, and cell death (autophagy).
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Having a healthy balance of this substance is key. Too much mTOR is a bad thing, as it contributes to inflammation and increases your likelihood of developing cancer, obesity, and neurodegenerative diseases. But if you have too little mTOR, you’ll also miss out, because it increases energy production in your mitochondria and encourages new mitochondrial growth.23 Better yet, mTOR helps improve your memory,24 and occasional spikes of it help you grow muscle.
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following a calorie-restricted diet or one that mimics fasting suppresses mTOR, which leads to an increase in the type of cells that help fight inflammation.25
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Your body makes eicosanoids from either omega-3 or omega-6 essential fatty acids. The eicosanoids made from omega-6s are pro-inflammatory, while the eicosanoids made from omega-3s are anti-inflammatory.
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In the year 2000, the average American consumed fifty-two teaspoons of added sugar a day.
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Fructose (which makes up 50 percent of table sugar) also easily links to proteins in the body such as collagen, the main constructive tissue in our skin and arteries. When linking to collagen, fructose creates toxic advanced glycation end products (AGEs). These are aptly named, as these end products play a role in the aging process and create oxidative stress in the body,27 triggering even more inflammation.
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Gerald Pollack and his discovery of a fourth phase of water called EZ water. It is this type of water that is inside your cells. When you don’t have enough EZ water in your cells, they become dehydrated and stop functioning well. Your body’s lymphatic flow (which includes toxins and waste products) also becomes inhibited, leading to chronic inflammation. Your mitochondria need EZ water. In fact, they can’t function without at least some of it.
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The EZ water inside your cells is negatively charged. This is important because, as we learned in chapter 2, neurons must be negatively charged before they send a signal to communicate with another neuron. If your cells don’t contain enough EZ water, they aren’t as negatively charged as they should be, and your neurons can’t communicate efficiently.
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Oxidation causes cells to lose their negative charge. Antioxidants fight excessive oxidation by trying to preserve that negative charge. Your body actually has many ways of holding on to a negative charge, including urinating, sweating, exhaling carbon dioxide, and even defecating. All of those waste products are positively charged.
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earthing, or soaking up negative charge from the ground.
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Flying is a mode of travel that tends to reduce your negative
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Light therapy is another way to help your body make EZ water. When regular water is exposed to infrared (and maybe UV [ultraviolet]) light, it can be transformed into EZ water. If you expose yourself to infrared light via infrared sauna or simply by going outside on a sunny day without sunglasses or sunscreen, your body will soak up that light energy and build EZ water. Light enters your body through your eyes and makes its way directly into your brain, where you’ll first feel its impact. Light matters greatly to your brain, in part because of its ability to help make EZ water.
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UV light, it flowed through the tube five times faster. If your blood and lymphatic fluid can flow through your narrow capillaries more quickly, you will experience less chronic inflammation.
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Light exposure can do this by improving mitochondrial efficiency and protecting against inflammation.31 Light therapy has also been shown to help mitochondria make ATP faster.
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Your brain is the first part of the body to suffer when you are chronically inflamed. • When your mitochondria are inflamed, they are less efficient at making energy because electrons have to travel farther to get to the same place. • Nearly every cause of lowered energy production now lays the groundwork for developing chronic diseases later. Head Start: Do These Three Things Right Now • Pay attention to changes in your muffin top; the same foods that cause your body to become inflamed are also making your brain foggy and inflamed. • Spend some time outdoors barefoot to soak up the earth’s negative charge and get some UV and infrared light. If it’s winter where you live, use an earthing mat and a sauna. • Have your inflammation levels checked by a functional medicine doctor. Substances such as CRP (C-reactive protein), homocysteine, and Lp-PLA2 (lipoprotein-associated phospholipase) are good markers to review for inflammation.
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Polyphenols can actually change the composition of your gut bacteria, increasing the amount of healthy bacteria and inhibiting the growth of harmful bacteria in your intestinal tract.
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polyphenols can protect your gut from dangerous pathogens such as staphylococcus and even salmonella.2 Interestingly, polyphenols and your gut bacteria have a symbiotic relationship. Polyphenols change the composition of your gut bacteria, while your gut bacteria are responsible for metabolizing polyphenols so your body can use them.
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polyphenols increase your levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and brain nerve growth factor (NGF).4 These are both proteins that encourage neurogenesis and protect your new neurons from dying off. An increase in BDNF and NGF has also been shown to improve learning, memory, and thinking.5 That’s
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Polyphenols play an important role in facilitating the cellular signals that initiate the process of apoptosis (cell death) and prevent old or damaged cells from mutating.6 You want cells that have already mutated to submit to apoptosis, but it’s even better if those cells don’t mutate in the first place.
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That’s right, putting butter on your broccoli actually makes it better for you because your body can absorb more of the good stuff in the broccoli when those polyphenols hitch a ride with fat molecules.
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Coffee is the number one source of polyphenols in the Western diet,10
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polyphenols in coffee regulate the “switches” that turn certain genes on and off, including the one that signals cells to replicate or to die.11 Coffee also contains a type of polyphenol called chlorogenic acid, which reduces chronic inflammation, particularly in cells with a high fat content, such as brain cells. This is one way (of dozens) that coffee improves cognition.
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The more coffee the study participants drank, the less likely they were to die.
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Dark chocolate (at least 85% dark) is full of polyphenols
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polyphenols in blueberries show that they increase life span, slow age-related cognitive declines,18 and significantly improve cardiovascular function.19 They directly raise BDNF, too! Unfortunately, blueberries are heavily sprayed with pesticides and are often visibly moldy, especially bulk frozen berries.
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The type of polyphenols found in pomegranates is water soluble and more easily absorbed by the body than most other polyphenols. These polyphenols are also known to break down into smaller compounds that cross the mitochondrial membrane and fight oxidative stress directly in the mitochondria.20 When your gut bacteria digest pomegranate, they make urolithin A, one of the few substances that cause your body to replace worn-out mitochondria with fully functioning new ones. Fresh pomegranates (and their juice) have a special detox enzyme called PON1 (paraoxonase 1), but pomegranate juice is too high in sugar to consume regularly.
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Grape seeds contain a very powerful type of polyphenol called proanthocyanidin. You don’t need to remember the name, just that it’s different from the polyphenol found in red wine, resveratrol.
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grape seed extract is that animal studies have shown that it corrects mitochondrial dysfunction caused by obesity and it protects against weight gain.23 Researchers in one study described grape seed extract as capable of correcting an energy imbalance and improving the fat-burning capacity of brown fat. Brown fat is the type of fat that helps you make energy and burn fat. In fact, it is brown instead of white because it is so rich in mitochondria.
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Resveratrol has been studied extensively, and we know that it improves mitochondrial function.25 In animals, it has been shown to cause a significant increase in aerobic capacity as well as new mitochondrial growth. It has also been shown to protect against obesity and insulin resistance caused by a poor diet.
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Cocaine, opium, heroin, and alcohol all increase levels of dopamine—but there are much better ways to boost your dopamine!
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Dopamine is made from protein building blocks called amino acids, in this case the amino acids L-tyrosine and L-phenylalanine. There are studies showing that sunlight exposure (or a tanning lamp) increases dopamine, too! Foods high in L-tyrosine: • Beef • Chicken • Turkey • Avocados • Almonds Foods high in L-phenylalanine: • Wild salmon • Sardines • Bacon • Beef • Liver • Almonds
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The conversion process from dopamine to norepinephrine requires ascorbic acid (vitamin C),
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L-tryptophan is the precursor your body needs to create serotonin.
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Acetylcholine precursors include L-carnitine and choline, which are best absorbed by the body when consumed together. Foods high in L-carnitine: • Beef • Lamb • Pork Foods high in choline: • Egg yolks (by far the best source) • Beef • Kidney • Liver • Wild salmon
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But it is perhaps best known for its ability to calm the brain and reduce anxiety. By making your neurons less likely to fire, GABA quiets, or calms, the entire nervous system.
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Our bodies are literally made up of fat. A healthy female body is comprised of 25–29 percent fat, while men’s are 15–20 percent fat.
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Your oligodendroglia cells (remember them?—they’re the cells that maintain myelin) synthesize brain cholesterol and use it to repair and maintain healthy myelin. In fact, 70–80 percent of the cholesterol in an adult brain is found in the myelin sheaths. Low HDL levels are associated with cognitive impairment and neurodegenerative disease,31 most likely because the oligodendroglia do not have the materials they need to keep your myelin intact.
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As a general rule, the shorter the fat, the more anti-inflammatory properties it offers. Short- and medium-chain fats, which include the butyric acid found in butter and two of the four types of medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) found in coconut oil, are important choices. In addition to being anti-inflammatory, butyric acid also helps to protect the blood-brain barrier. And eating the butyric acid found in delicious, creamy butter has beneficial effects different from the ones you get when your gut bacteria make butyric acid from fiber.
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Oxidized (damaged) fats create inflammation in the body. When your body uses these damaged fats to make cell membranes, they are less flexible and less effective, and they create harmful free radicals. These free radicals cause even more inflammation and age you quickly. Damaged fats are the enemy of performance, starting in your brain.
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These are saturated fats, which have the fewest places for oxygen to cause damage through oxidation, and just enough of the damage-prone omega-3 fats to make membranes work. When you eat saturated fats, your brain can create strong, stable cell membranes. The second most stable fats are monounsaturated fats, which have only one vulnerable spot where oxygen can get in and wreak havoc (“mono” means one). Unsaturated fats are the least stable and the most inflammatory type of fats, but the brain does need some of them. Omega-3s and omega-6s are both essential unsaturated fats.
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omega-3 fatty acids for your brain: eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). EPA is a powerful anti-inflammatory, while DHA is the primary structural fatty acid in your brain, your retina, and your central nervous system and is essential for brain development.32 Go back and read that last sentence again. DHA is the primary structural fatty acid in the human brain. In fact, some researchers believe that it was an increase in our intake of DHA that allowed humans to grow such large and powerful brains.33 Yet, we cannot make DHA ourselves—we have to get it from dietary sources.
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Grass-Fed Animal Fat and Meat (bone marrow, lard, etc., but not poultry fat). A 2006 study36 showed that grass-fed cows have more healthy omega-3s and more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which is a type of naturally occurring trans-fatty acid that improves brain function, causes weight loss, and reduces your risk of cancer.
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Grass-Fed Beef Tallow. Tallow is sort of like butter that’s made of animal fat instead of milk fat. It’s solid at room temperature, which means it’s extremely stable.
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Even organic chickens eat mostly organic grains. Sure, that’s better than eating GMO grains, but not by much. Pastured egg yolks, from chickens that eat grass and have the freedom to roam wherever they like, have a deep golden color from their vitamin A and antioxidants and contain twice as many omega-3s as “regular” eggs.
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Olive Oil. Olive oil contains oleocanthal and oleuropein, two anti-inflammatory and highly potent antioxidants. Oleocanthal is almost medicinal in its health effects. It has been shown in studies to clear the brain of the dangerous amyloid plaques that are linked to Alzheimer’s, and it also causes the death of cancer cells.
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Krill oil is more stable and is phosphorylated, meaning it’s easier for your brain to use. It also contains astaxanthin, a potent antioxidant shown to improve mitochondria.
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When your mitochondria are using ketones as fuel to create ATP, you are in a state of ketosis. This is a state of high performance (but one you might not want to be in all of the time). It increases your mitochondria’s energetic output, reduces your production of free radicals, and increases your production of the important inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA.
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Your cells need oxygen to make energy, but oxygen stimulates neurons, and too much neuron stimulation causes excitotoxicity. This is a process that kills neurons by over-activating neurotransmitter receptors and generating oxidative stress and can cause seizures. Ketosis increases GABA and antioxidant levels, which helps prevent seizures. It doesn’t hurt that your mitochondria create ATP more efficiently from ketones than glucose, creating less oxidative stress in the process38 and providing more energy for your neurons to control excitotoxcity. And as you’ve already learned, when your mitochondria are working better, they make fewer free radicals.
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Long story short: ketones are able to skip a step before they even get to work creating energy.
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increase of acetyl CoA from ketones also drives the Krebs cycle to “charge up” more NADH, the molecule that provides energy to the electron transport system. Simple version: ketosis makes your body’s process of releasing and recycling energy go faster. This uses up less oxygen than burning glucose and creates less oxidative stress in the process.
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While 100 grams of glucose generates 8.7 kilograms of ATP, 100 grams of a ketone body can yield 10.5 kilograms of ATP.39 That’s over 20 percent more!
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Dr. Veech explained that humans are the only animals that go into ketosis when we fast because we have such large brains to support. Ketosis protects our big brains from oxidative stress and allows us to survive. Without ketones, we would die in six days without food, but with them we can survive much longer.
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Dr. Veech told me that the heart gets 28 percent more energy when it is metabolizing ketone bodies compared to glucose. Since the brain and the heart have roughly the same density of mitochondria, ketones’ impact on the brain is just as dramatic.
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Being keto adapted has its benefits. Your body becomes more efficient at breaking down fats and burning them for energy. You also experience powerful detoxification effects.
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one of the first symptoms of cutting too many carbs for too long is having very dry eyes. Being this low in carbs without a break can also ruin your quality of sleep. Eating no carbs for extended periods can also damage your thyroid,40 which is a big problem since you need thyroid hormones to make ATP and maintain healthy myelin. (That said, some people seem to thrive in continuous ketosis—though they are in the minority.)
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other cells in the body, such as the ones that repair and maintain myelin, actually prefer glucose.
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They learned that because some MCTs are water-soluble, they go directly to the liver, and your liver metabolizes them on the spot. To do so, it wipes out your storage of glycogen. This puts you in a state of ketosis very quickly, even if some carbohydrates are present.
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When your blood concentration of ketones is 0.8 millimolar, you are considered to be in a state of nutritional ketosis. But I’ve found research that says that having even a small amount of ketones in your bloodstream—a mere 0.5 millimolar—is enough to shift two hormones that control hunger and fulfillment.
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Fasting improves myelination and myelin regeneration in the brain and helps reduce inflammation throughout the body. Fasting also switches on your cellular detox system, autophagy. When this happens, you eliminate cellular waste. It is the equivalent of a deep cleaning for your brain, and it feels amazing.
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The Brain Octane Oil puts me into a mild form of ketosis even if I ate some carbs the night before. The polyphenols in coffee fight inflammation, support new brain cells, and feed more good bacteria in my gut. And the butyrate in the grass-fed butter protects my blood-brain barrier while continuing to feed the good gut bacteria. It also helps make the polyphenols from the coffee more bioavailable, and it doesn’t contain the milk protein that locks polyphenols away from my brain. It is safe to say that this has been the most life-changing nutritional performance hack I have ever experienced.
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Polyphenols are antioxidants that protect your gut, increase your rate of neurogenesis, play a role in apoptosis, and lower inflammation—and your body needs fat to absorb them. • You need certain nutrients to make the most important neurotransmitters for your brain. The best foods for this include beef, almonds, eggs, lamb, and wild salmon. • Your mitochondria make energy more efficiently with ketones than they do with glucose. Head Start: Do These Three Things Right Now • Always eat low-sugar fruits and veggies with a healthy fat source such as grass-fed butter. • Eat more fish to get plenty of essential fatty acids for your brain. • Use Brain Octane Oil or restrict carbohydrates so your brain has access to ketones.
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When the mitochondria are inflamed, the electron transport chain becomes elongated, and it takes more time for electrons to move through the chain. The result is that you become less efficient at producing energy, your performance suffers, and you have less of the energy it takes to be yourself.
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I’ve said some of the worst things to my family when food or toxins disrupted my mitochondria and made the emotional processing parts of my brain ineffective.
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When you eat a food you’re sensitive to, your heart rate increases by about seventeen beats per minute within ninety minutes of eating your food.
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free smartphone app called Bulletproof Food Detective that helps you with this test.
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Trans fats are born when hydrogen is added to liquid vegetable oils to make them more stable.
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Trans fats also form in restaurant fryers over time.
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havoc in your body and are your brain’s nemesis. Trans fats change the composition of mitochondria1 and build up inside the mitochondrial matrix as they are metabolized.2 They also lead to inflammation in your brain and cause your immune system to become overactive.3 Consumption of trans fats has been linked to a host of illnesses including cancer, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease,
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Your mitochondria may not work properly for several days after you eat trans fats, so it’s not okay to “cheat” on this one.
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In many people, casein breaks down into casomorphin, which binds to the opiate receptors in your brain and makes you feel sedated.
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Milk protein causes inflammation, which lowers mitochondrial function. Milk protein also binds to the good-for-you polyphenols in your diet (like the ones found in your coffee!) and makes them unavailable to your body—and your mitochondria.
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polyphenols become 3.4 times less absorbable in your body.
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Butter yet (ahem), animal studies show that the short-chain fat found in butter, butyric acid, causes “an increase in mitochondrial function and biogenesis.”
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Gluten prompts an over-release of zonulin, which pushes these cells farther apart, allowing pathogens to slip through the protective barrier of your gut lining (leading to a condition known as leaky gut syndrome).
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Because the way they are produced damages most of these oils, and they are so unstable that they easily oxidize in heat, light, or air. They also provide an overabundance of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats. Remember, you need a good balance of omega-3s and omega-6s to keep inflammation at bay (the perfect ratio is roughly one omega-3 for every four omega-6s you consume).
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Many studies have shown that common mold toxins in food cause mitochondrial dysfunction.10
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moldymovie.com/headstrong2017.
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Almost every cell in your body contains thousands of mitochondria, which are bacteria that support your cells. Is it any wonder that fungi, the ancient enemy of bacteria, have the ability to damage the power plants in your cells and wreak havoc in your brain?
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One type of mold toxin, called ochratoxin A (OTA)—found especially in high-polyphenol foods such as coffee, chocolate, wine, grains, and beer—is pure mitochondrial kryptonite. In many studies, OTA has been shown to interfere with apoptosis, impair mitochondria, cause oxidative stress, and make mitochondrial membranes more permeable.11 OTA also impairs your cells’ antioxidant defenses, making them more susceptible to the oxidative stress caused by OTA. This slows down your energy production and accelerates the aging process, all while killing off your healthy cells. OTA is also an immune suppressant and makes you more susceptible to cancer and various autoimmune diseases.
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After isolating the mitochondria and exposing them to OTA, the researchers found that mitochondrial function declined in proportion to the concentration of OTA used to treat the cells. The OTA slowed down energy production at first; with increased exposure, eventually the entire energy production system broke down.13 And the scary thing is that rats are far better at eliminating OTA than humans.
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OTA also causes permanent changes to the structure of mitochondria. In another study, mitochondria that were exposed to OTA deteriorated, becoming swollen as their energy production decreased.
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OTA inhibited embryonic development in pregnant mice by overstimulating apoptosis (cell death).
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chronic fatigue syndrome. A whopping 93 percent of them tested positive for mycotoxins, compared to 0 percent in the healthy control group. OTA was the most prevalent type of mycotoxin present and was detected in 83 percent of the patients.16
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there is no government on Earth with multi–mycotoxin exposure regulations, despite clear evidence that they are necessary.
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2016 test of more than eight thousand grain samples found that 96 percent contained at least ten types of mycotoxin,17 and another study found that at least 25 percent of the world’s grain crops are contaminated with OTA.
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By the time the grain lands in your bowl, your breakfast cereal has a 42 percent chance of containing OTA.
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Ranchers have learned that feeding moldy grains or hay to animals makes them infertile and causes reproductive diseases, heart disease, and neurological diseases. So animal producers do what you’d expect Big Agriculture to do—they feed clean, mold-free grain to young or pregnant animals and feed the cheaper, moldy grain to animals in the last few months before they are slaughtered. This saves them money because the animals don’t have a chance to get too sick before they’re killed and we eat them.
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Try to avoid things that eat grains, too. Mold toxins accumulate in the milk of cows that are fed contaminated grains.19
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And the coffee they reject actually gets sent to the United States for unsuspecting people to drink. In fact, a former president of the Specialty Coffee Association of America told me on video that he was present when a Japanese trade minister rejected one thousand containers of African coffee because of mold contamination. I asked him what they did with the coffee. He said, “They sent it to the U.S.”
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First, look for single-estate coffee.
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Second, look for washed coffee, because washed coffee is better than natural-process coffee. Steer clear of natural process entirely.
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The third thing to do is to look for Central American coffee,
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“organic” label means nothing—most of the best coffees come from small plantations that could never afford an organic certification because the paperwork cost would put them out of business. Plus, organic coffee can sit in dirty water and grow mold toxins just like conventional coffee can.
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Dried fruit contains even more sugar than regular fruit per ounce, and the drying process often creates high levels of mold toxins.
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I recommend buying whole nuts with the skin (not shell) still on, as manufacturers use damaged nuts that are far more likely to contain mold toxins to make slivered, chopped, or ground nuts, nut butters, nut flours, and even nut milks.
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The artificial sweetener aspartame is made up of two amino acids, or protein building blocks. One of them, phenylalanine, is chemically altered to form free methanol (wood alcohol). Free methanol is neurotoxic and is converted into formaldehyde in the liver.29 Formaldehyde is mitochondrial poison. A study from 2015 shows that it causes oxidative stress, greatly reduces cellular energy production, and eventually leads to apoptosis (cell death).30
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Aspartame is also known as an excitatory neurotoxin because it causes your synapses to fire repeatedly. As you learned in chapter 3, your neurons are full of mitochondria because firing takes up so much energy. When your neurons fire relentlessly because you ate a man-made chemical, you’re taxing your mitochondria at the exact same time that you’re poisoning them.
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Your favorite sushi condiment is fermented with a type of fungus called aspergillus. Many species of aspergillus contain citrinin, a mold toxin that induces apoptosis.31 Soy sauce also contains a stimulating neurotransmitter called tyramine, which causes oxidative stress, excitotoxicity, and damage to mitochondria.32 Even worse, soy sauce is high in histamine, a stimulating neurotransmitter that can also cause systemic inflammation and mitochondrial slowing.
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Until the 1950s, doctors prescribed fluoride to reduce thyroid function. Yes, you read that correctly. Fluoride reduces the thyroid hormones that your mitochondria need to function and that your neurons need to maintain healthy myelin.
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2 milligrams of fluoride a day is enough to reduce thyroid function.
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low thyroid function changes the shape of your mitochondria and makes them less efficient!
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When babies are exposed to low levels of these pesticides in the womb, they have lower IQs and experience lifelong problems with learning and memory.
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Organophosphates irreversibly inactivate an enzyme in your body that breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. As you read in chapter 5, you need some acetylcholine to stimulate your muscles and schedule REM sleep.
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Organophosphates are also terribly destructive to your mitochondria. They alter all five mitochondrial complexes, disrupt the mitochondrial membrane, reduce ATP production, mess with antioxidant cellular defenses, and promote cell death.36
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Mercury is a heavy metal and one of the most toxic of all in its class. It depletes the antioxidants that your mitochondria need to combat oxidative stress,37 leading to inflammation, cell damage, and mitochondrial dysfunction. It has also been directly linked to reduced IQ.38
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The highest concentrations of mercury are found in tilefish, swordfish, shark, and mackerel.
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since 1927, when a biochemist named Herbert Crabtree discovered that elevated glucose levels lower mitochondrial function. This is called the Crabtree effect.
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Insulin helps facilitate communication between your neurons. When you’re insulin resistant, the excess insulin rushes to your brain, and important messages get lost in the flood.
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rats that were fed a high-sugar diet for six weeks experienced declines in their ability to navigate through a maze and exhibited less synaptic activity than rats that weren’t fed sugar. Their neurons literally couldn’t signal to each other, and the rats lost their ability to think clearly or complete tasks they’d learned just six weeks earlier.
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When you have high levels of blood sugar and insulin, your body releases inflammatory cytokines. This can create a vicious cycle, as insulin causes inflammation and inflammation causes more severe insulin resistance. Blood sugar levels then creep higher and higher as you become increasingly inflamed, foggy, forgetful, and tired.
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Fructose creates oxidative stress41 and feeds the bad bacteria in your gut, leading to even more inflammation. Fructose is implicated in damaging mitochondria in skeletal muscle cells, harming the mitochondrial membrane, and impairing cellular respiration and energy metabolism.42
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In addition to all of the other ways that alcohol is bad for your brain, it causes oxidative stress in your mitochondria while simultaneously reducing your mitochondria’s oxidative stress defenses.
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Basically, alcohol slows down the energy production in your cells, weakens them, and then makes them more likely to die.
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When you smoke, fry, or grill meat, you create two carcinogens: heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These compounds do more than cause cancer, though. HCAs are neurotoxic and induce tremors. In one study, patients with essential tremor, a common neurodegenerative disease, had 50 percent more HCAs in their bloodstreams than people without tremors.45 Even worse, both HCAs and PAHs are known to inhibit mitochondrial function.
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When HCAs were given to rats, their mitochondria became mutated and enlarged.47
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PAHs prevented the cells from dying during mitochondria-induced apoptosis.49
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Whey protein, for example, boosts your mitochondria’s production of glutathione, an incredibly important antioxidant, but it cannot perform this important task as well when it is denatured.
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When the cell membranes in your brain and the rest of your body are made of damaged fats, they are less flexible and less functional. Your neurons can’t send or receive messages as efficiently, and your mitochondria start to degrade. Oxidized fats also disrupt hormone and neurotransmitter signaling. One way they do this is by producing excessive amounts of glutamate, the same excitatory neurotransmitter in MSG that can cause neurons to die from excitotoxicity.
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Every time a damaged fat molecule is used as a building block in the body, it creates oxidative stress.
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Dicarbonyls are also precursors to advanced glycation end products (AGE), which, as you read earlier, cause inflammation and further compound oxidative stress.52
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we replace half of the fat in our cells every two years.
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Soybean oil turns on your genes for inflammation and interferes with mitochondrial function.
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Head Points: Don’t Forget These Three Things • Dairy protein, gluten, trans fats, and vegetable oils cause inflammation in everyone. • Mold toxins are particularly toxic to your mitochondria and are commonly found in grains, coffee, dried fruit, wine, beer, chocolate, nuts, and corn. • You can damage healthy fats by cooking them at high temperatures. This makes them toxic. Head Start: Do These Three Things Right Now • Stop using artificial sweeteners. They are toxic to your mitochondria even in small amounts. While you’re at it, cut down on your sugar intake, particularly the fructose that is found in fruit juice and high-fructose corn syrup. • Never eat fried food! Frying damages fats and makes them toxic. • Buy organic produce whenever possible, as GMOs are commonly sprayed with toxic pesticides.
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toxic mold exposure also causes the space between your cells to become wider. This leads your cell membranes and your blood-brain barrier to become more permeable. You do not want either of those barriers to
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SPECT brain scan technology, Dr. Amen is able to observe how mold affects the brain on a physical level. He explained that in the scans he’s seen, mold exposure visibly damages the amygdala, the part of your brain that is involved in impulsive, reactive emotions such as fear, anger, and anxiety. An impaired amygdala can cause you to fly into a rage for seemingly no reason. This can devastate your performance, not to mention your relationships. Dr. Amen says that people whose brain scans reveal toxic mold exposure often hate themselves because they don’t know why they’re having such a difficult time controlling their emotions—that is, until they see the image of their brain looking visibly impaired.
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screening of more than 550 different pharmaceutical drugs revealed that 34 percent of them damage mitochondria.
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Antibiotics: Common antibiotics, including tetracycline, are now proven to cause mitochondrial dysfunction.11 After all, your mitochondria are evolved from bacteria, and antibiotics are meant to fight bacteria! The good news is that some research indicates that the antioxidant glutathione or its precursor, cysteine, could protect mitochondria12
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Anticonvulsants (Depakote): These drugs slow down the Krebs cycle so your mitochondria become less efficient at producing energy.
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Antidepressants and Antipsychotics: Elavil, Prozac, Cipramil, Thorazine, Prolixin, Haldol, and Risperdal all cause mitochondrial dysfunction and death.
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Barbiturates: Phenobarbital decreases the number and size of your mitochondria.
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Cholesterol Medications: Statins reduce the amount of the natural antioxidant CoQ10 in your body, which your mitochondria need to produce energy. This can lead to myopathy, a muscle tissue disease. Bile acids (cholestyramine) can inhibit the Krebs cycle but may still be worth taking in the short term because they also bind mold toxins.
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Anti-Inflammatories: Aspirin inhibits the Krebs cycle and causes mitochondrial uncoupling. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) increases oxidative stress, which damages the mitochondria.
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Anti-Arrhythmics: Amioradone inhibits mitochondrial function.
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Diabetes Medications: Metformin makes your cells energetically inefficient.
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Beta-Blockers: These medications cause oxidative stress, which damages your mitochondria.
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Dr. Jeffrey Bland, the
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Chlorella. This is a type of algae that is extremely effective at binding and removing toxins from your body. It works well for detoxing from heavy metal exposure. I carry it with me and take a handful of chlorella tablets every time I eat tuna or other high-mercury fish.
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Head Points: Don’t Forget These Three Things • About 25 percent of us are genetically sensitive to mold and get very sick when exposed. The rest of us have symptoms that are subtle and might be written off as just a bad day. • Mold toxins, heavy metals, and some pharmaceutical drugs are directly toxic to your mitochondria. • Your body stores toxins in fat, so anything you do to break up the fat in your body will help you detox. Head Start: Do These Three Things Right Now • Check your home and office for leaks and address any potential mold issues right away. • Keep track of how you feel in different environments—you may realize that one or more of the places you spend a lot of time in contain toxins.
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Your visual systems require up to 15 percent of your total energy budget.1
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When you have an unstable energy supply to the mitochondria in your eyes, or just poor mitochondrial performance in general, you can suffer from brain fog and headaches and even lose your ability to perceive subtle shades of gray. In fact, changes to your perception of shades of gray (it turns out there are more than fifty of them) can be used to diagnose whether or not you have been exposed to mitochondrial toxins.
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Mitochondria also communicate with each other,2 so any stress to your eye mitochondria can adversely affect the mitochondria in your brain, your heart, and everywhere else.
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T. S. Wiley also cautioned us about the health hazards of poor-quality light almost fifteen years ago in her book Lights Out.
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UVB light is vital to activate vitamin D in your body and to help set your circadian rhythm, the physiological process that tells you when to sleep and when to wake up.
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UVB light hits your skin, it converts vitamin D into its activated, sulfated form. Thus it’s not enough to just pop a vitamin D3 supplement. You have to activate the vitamin, and that requires exposure to real sunlight (or a high-quality UVB lamp).
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Your mitochondria have to produce a lot of extra energy to process the blue light in LEDs, which burns oxygen and creates free radicals in the cells of your eyes. And when the mitochondria in your eyes are stressed, the rest of your mitochondria can get stressed, too, including the ones in your brain.
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blue light “can cause cell dysfunction through the action of reactive oxygen species on DNA and that this may contribute to cellular aging, age-related pathologies, and tumorigenesis [the creation of tumors].”3
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blue light changes mitochondrial shape and creates stress proteins in your eyes that are likely connected to macular degeneration (the deterioration of the central area of the retina, often resulting in vision loss).4
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When your eyes are exposed to high-quality full-spectrum light, the free radicals that are produced prompt the cell to produce extra antioxidants to clean up the free radicals. Your mitochondria are built to clean up their own exhaust as long as there isn’t too much of it. Blue light, however, causes an increase in free radical production but doesn’t trigger the cleanup signal to increase antioxidant production. Instead of traveling to the cell nucleus, the excess free radicals stay under the cell membrane, resulting in macular degeneration and decreased energy production, and outside the eyes it can even cause premature skin aging.
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Sitting under those bright LED and fluorescent lights at work will make you look old.
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Fluorescent and LED lights also cause a reduction of NAD in the mitochondria in your eyes.
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reduction in NAD causes all of the weaknesses that can stem from a lack of energy in your cells. Over time, this can change the shape of your eye, triggering nearsightedness.
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These sensors become activated at the frequency of 480 nanometers, which is in the blue spectrum. Your phone, TV, laptop, and every LED in your home all emit this light frequency. When it hits your eyes, each of the ten thousand mitochondria in your cells pays the price. Their energy production slows, they produce more free radicals, and the structure of the water they contain is altered. This causes inflammation and negatively impacts your sleep, preventing you from falling asleep easily and sleeping deeply. This stresses every system in your body and results in even more inflammation. It’s a slippery, sleepy, and poorly lit slope.
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When you’re exposed to daylight, your body produces serotonin, the “feel good” neurotransmitter. Your body breaks serotonin down into melatonin, a hormone that helps you sleep. If you’re not exposed to enough natural sunlight during the day, you won’t have enough melatonin to sleep well at night. You may have trouble falling asleep, but more likely you won’t cycle through the most restful, deepest stages of sleep. Oh, and low melatonin is well known to be associated with cancer risk!
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Lack of sleep and weight gain both contribute to mitochondrial inefficiency. And without sufficient energy, your brain suffers. To put it simply, junk light equals junk sleep.
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as they should. Dr. Gerald Pollack, water expert and bioengineering professor from the University of Washington, has also discovered that infrared light turns the water in our bodies (and in plants) into the biologically useful EZ water that supports mitochondrial function. This EZ water should always be in plentiful supply in our cells, but the toxins we ingest from food, the environment, and junk light alter the structure of that water. This causes inflammation and leads to energy problems.
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At home, I use my ultraviolet sun lamp for about ten minutes each morning, and I have a strip of red LED lights above my desk that I use while I work to balance out the excessive blue that’s built into our technology.
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Collagen, the main structural protein in the human body, has a direct relationship with your mitochondria, and studies show that mutations in collagen affect mitochondria.
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turns out that red light is well documented to make both collagen and mitochondria grow; in fact, red light exposure causes collagen synthesis, and this is great if you want healthier skin
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Symptoms of Irlen syndrome include headaches, eyestrain, difficulty reading, fatigue, poor depth perception, dizziness, and trouble focusing. Irlen recommends using custom-tinted lenses that block out specific light frequencies that stress your brain.
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Subjecting your body to short periods of low oxygen intake can also help it become more efficient at using oxygen when it is present. Even more interesting, short periods of low oxygen intake (known as hypoxia) increase the production of the all-important brain hormone BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which helps support neuron growth and development.
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One way to do this is through a type of training called intermittent hypoxic training. This technique consists of intervals of breathing low-oxygen (or hypoxic) air through an air mask, alternating with intervals of breathing regular air. As your body adapts to the hypoxic air, it becomes more efficient at delivering oxygen in the blood. In addition to boosting athletic performance, this builds a tremendous amount of resilience as it pares down weak mitochondria and grows stronger ones. At Bulletproof
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Here’s how to do it: First, sit down, get comfortable, and close your eyes. Make sure you’re in a position where you can freely expand your lungs. Wim suggests doing this practice right after waking up since your stomach is still empty. Warm up by inhaling deeply and drawing the breath in until you feel a slight pressure. Hold the breath for a moment before exhaling completely, pushing the air out as much as you can. Hold the exhalation for as long as you can, and then repeat this fifteen times. Next, inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth in short, powerful bursts, as if you’re blowing up a balloon. Pull in your belly when you’re exhaling and let it expand when you inhale. Do this about thirty times, using a steady pace, until you feel that your body is saturated with oxygen. You may feel light-headed or tingly, or you may experience a surge of energy that’s literally electric. Try to get a sense of which parts of your body are overflowing with energy and which ones are lacking it—and where there are blockages between these two extremes. As you continue breathing, send the breath to those blockages. When you’re done, take one more big breath in, filling your lungs to maximum capacity, and then push all of the air out. Hold this for as long as you can and try to feel the oxygen spreading around your body. When you can’t hold it anymore, inhale fully and feel your chest expanding. Hold it again, sending energy where your body needs it. Bonus points if you do
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When you soak yourself in cold water or use ice packs to lower your body temperature, your body is forced to create heat. This is called thermogenesis, a process that burns fat and stimulates the release of proteins that burn glycogen (the main storage form of glucose) from your muscles. When your muscles are depleted of glycogen, your body receives a signal to increase production of testosterone and growth hormone. This leads to a cascade of positive effects. It reduces inflammation, makes you more insulin sensitive, and stimulates autophagy so that your weak and damaged cells die and make room for new, healthy ones. There is also evidence that cold therapy can improve thyroid and mitochondrial function.
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Cold therapy also helps to tone your vagus
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nerve.19 Known as the “wandering nerve” (vagus is Latin for “wandering”), this nerve starts at your brain stem and travels throughout the body, connecting your brain to your stomach and digestive tract, as well as your lungs, heart, spleen, intestines, liver, and kidneys. It also connects to nerves that are involved in speech, eye contact, facial expressions, and hearing. The vagus nerve’s main job is to monitor what’s going on in your body and report information back to your brain. It is a key component of your parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for calming you down after your fight-or-flight response revs you up. The strength of your vagus nerve activity is known as your vagal tone. If you have a high vagal tone, you are able to relax more quickly after experiencing a moment of stress.
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People with a high vagal tone tend to have healthier blood glucose levels and more consistent energy.20 People with low vagal tone are more likely to have chronic inflammation. Just as it calms your inner Labrador after it’s been spooked, your vagus nerve also switches off the production of inflammatory proteins after your immune system has been activated.
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Head Points: Don’t Forget These Three Things • LED and CFL bulbs have too much blue light, which damages your mitochondria. This is junk light! • About half of us have Irlen syndrome, which means we have trouble processing certain frequencies of light. This may be why you get tired while reading or driving at night. • To teach your cells how to use oxygen more efficiently, temporarily expose them to less oxygen than they’re used to. Head Start: Do These Three Things Right Now • Buy some red LED lights to balance out all of the blue light your eyes are getting from your screens. • Wear sunglasses in an indoor environment with lots of junk light, such as an arcade or amusement park. • Turn the water all of the way to cold for the last thirty seconds of your shower.
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Unlike your circulatory system, which relies on a pump (your heart) to circulate blood, your lymphatic system has no pump—so it relies on muscle movement and EZ water to keep lymph flowing freely. For decades, we assumed that there was no such lymphatic system to clean the brain because the blood-brain barrier protects the brain from fluids that travel around the body. Then in 2012, researchers identified the glymphatic system, which sends clear cerebral spinal fluid through the brain’s tissue, effectively flushing out cellular waste and neurotoxins from the brain and transporting them to the circulatory system. Eventually, they make their way to your liver, where they are processed as waste.1
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in addition to the glymphatic system, the brain also contains hidden lymph vessels.
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Interestingly, your brain cells shrink by as much as 60 percent while you sleep. This makes it easier for the fluid to circulate through your brain tissue.
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It’s a reciprocal relationship: the better your mitochondria work, the better your glymphatic system can operate, and the better-quality sleep you’ll get.
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During sleep, you produce increased levels of growth hormone, which stimulates neurogenesis as well as mitochondrial growth.5 Sleep also strengthens connections between brain cells and improves your memory by allowing your brain to process experiences and solidify new memories.
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Getting consistently poor-quality sleep causes a 40 percent decrease in blood sugar regulation.
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Everything goes back to mitochondria—even snoring. Studies show that when mitochondria are not working at their best, many common sleep disorders, including sleep apnea,9 can result.
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A regular meditation practice also yields visible results—you develop more folds in the outer layer of the brain, a trait that’s highly correlated with intelligence across species.12 When you have more folds in your brain, it’s easier to process information because your neurons can access more surface area within the same skull volume.
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And meditation has been shown to significantly reduce levels of the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, effectively reducing inflammation and calming your inner Labrador so that you can maintain focus and emotional stability under even the most challenging circumstances.
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The most effective tool I have found is called EEG (electroencephalogram) neurofeedback, although any technology that provides fast feedback can improve your meditation.
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On the Bulletproof website, I maintain an updated list of several safe and affordable systems you can purchase to use at home. These range from $300 entry-level systems with limited power to $5,000 systems that approach clinical-grade capabilities.
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Hemoencephalography (HEG), which I use at home, is a type of feedback that focuses on increasing blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, the “human brain.”
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Exercise is one of the best ways to stimulate the release of an important protein called PGC-1 alpha (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator-1 alpha), which helps to regulate metabolism and mitogenesis. (Cold exposure also stimulates PCG-1 alpha production—this is how cold thermogenesis helps create new mitochondria.)
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it. It takes high-intensity interval training (HIIT) to release this protein.17
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When you exercise, your muscles also release a protein called FNDC5 (fibronectin type III domain-containing protein 5). Part of this protein goes into the bloodstream and increases levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the hippocampus, where neurogenesis occurs.
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2013 that they discovered a link between PCG-1 alpha and BDNF. It turns out that increasing PCG-1 alpha raises FNDC5 production, which leads to an even greater increase in BDNF.20
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Their work reveals that exercise lowers the activity of bone-morphogenetic protein (BMP), a protein that reduces your rate of neurogenesis. At the same time, exercise raises your levels of noggin (I swear that’s the real name), a protein that counteracts BMP and actually increases your rate of neurogenesis.21
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Exercise not only helps you become fitter, it also encourages the survival of your fittest mitochondria. That’s because exercise lowers the mTOR protein, which helps your body weed out the weak, dysfunctional, or mutated cells, and either kills them off or makes them stronger.
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Dr. Doug McGuff, the author of Body by Science (a book I highly recommend), suggests doing resistance training only once every seven to ten days. His research shows that this offers greater benefits than more frequent exercise, and of course it saves you a lot of time. But the catch is, you have to work hard when you are training. You smack down your mitochondria with intensity and then back off and let them recover.
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Unfortunately, most medium-intensity cardio workouts actually decrease your ejection fraction.
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The secret is to sit—or better yet, lie on your back—for a full ninety seconds between sprints. This allows your nervous system to come back into equilibrium more quickly, so you reap more of the benefits from the sprint.
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In 2015 scientists in Germany discovered that free radicals make the water inside your mitochondria more viscous and sticky and that exposure to UV light can undo that effect.
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The researchers observed that when it is exposed to sunlight or mechanical vibration, melanin has the power to break water apart, freeing up oxygen and electrons for your mitochondria to use to make energy.45
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melanin is incredibly important for our mitochondria. And guess where we get melanin? We make it by linking polyphenols together! This means that the more polyphenols you eat, the more melanin you can make, and the more oxygen and electrons your mitochondria will have access to—if you get adequate sunlight and use exercise to shake the water in your cells.
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In addition to polyphenols, coffee contains melanin and similar compounds called melanoids. This new science about EZ water and melanin might explain an observation that has kept me wondering for years. EZ water forms when you shake or blend water, and it forms more easily when there are small droplets of fat present because fat helps create a piezoelectric effect.
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Blending that EZ water with the polyphenols, melanin, and melanoids46 in the coffee could have a direct effect on the coffee by creating free oxygen and electrons—before it even enters your body.
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Head Points: Don’t Forget These Three Things • When it comes to sleep, focus on quality more than quantity. • Meditation changes your brain on a structural level—for the better. • You need lots of time to recover in between intense bouts of exercise—at least several days. Head Start: Do These Three Things Right Now • Jump on a trampoline or do jumping jacks to shake the water in your cells and make them more EZ. • Get some extra sleep tonight to give your brain a chance to form pathways between neurons and solidify new memories. Later on, you’ll learn how to get better-quality sleep. • Try breathing in for five seconds, holding for five seconds, breathing out for five seconds, and holding the out breath for five seconds. Do it five times in a row.
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You can create the same effect on your iPhone, but it’s a little trickier, so I added a video to help you at bulletproof.com/headstrong.
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The easier (but not that cheap) solution is to get a fantastic HDMI box from Drift TV that permanently plugs into the HDMI input on your TV.
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Replace all of the compact fluorescent and white LED lights in your bedroom with lower-wattage halogen bulbs, or go all-in with a lamp that has an amber or red bulb. The amber or red bulb may look funny, but
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A Harvard study found that people with broken circadian rhythms had higher blood sugar and lower levels of leptin, the hormone that helps you feel full.
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stand for ten minutes in front of a narrow-spectrum UVB tanning lamp hanging in my bathroom.
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You can purchase reptile lights or search “narrow-spectrum UVB bulb” to find this type of light online. Please
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Cell phones produce EMFs. In one study, sperm that were exposed to EMFs had fewer antioxidants and an 85 percent increase in free radicals.
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A meditation like this is best experienced with headphones, and there’s a recording with Dr. Barry available for free at bulletproof.com/headstrong.
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5 g daily to maintain
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10 mg sulforaphane daily with raw cruciferous vegetable or raw broccoli sprouts, or an enzyme-activated supplement TIME OF DAY: Anytime, on an empty stomach
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The KetoPrime formula mimics the mitochondrial impact of restricting calories, which tells your genes to make you live longer.17 It also increases the precursor NAD+ that mitochondria need to make more energy and protects the brain from excessive glutamate, actually transforming harmful excess glutamate into fuel for neurons.18 In animal studies, OAA has shown to be more powerful than other supplements that protect your brain from glutamate.19 Studies have also shown that it protects mitochondria from environmental toxins and free radicals.20 KetoPrime is one of the most powerful mitochondrial enhancers I have ever found. It “primes the pump” for the Krebs cycle, and, since it’s water soluble, it can reach directly into your brain.21
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PQQ past your digestive system, it has a measurable impact on mitochondrial function and can even cause mitochondrial biogenesis. PQQ also functions as an antioxidant, protecting against inflammation and oxidative stress. It can increase mitochondrial density to give you more energy,23 reduce inflammation,24 boost metabolism,25 improve fertility,26 and improve learning and memory ability.27
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One hack that’s really helped me is taking this before bed. The glymphatic system that cleans your brain during sleep requires mitochondrial energy, and supporting it with PQQ helps me sleep efficiently.
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Initial studies on methylene blue as a smart drug are promising, and it is now available in tablet form or via IV. A 2007 study showed that it can increase a cell’s life span.
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So did humans in another study, where methylene blue was shown to help short-term memory.14 Methylene blue definitely helps mitochondrial respiration, and you can feel the difference if you try it.15 And if something is inhibiting your mitochondria, methylene blue can trap leaking electrons and keep your metabolism going.
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The safe range is 1–4 mg per kg of body weight.18
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Four different well-constructed studies show that piracetam improves mitochondrial function.19 In fact, I believe this may be one of its important mechanisms of action, one that is overlooked in most of its descriptions. This is one of the safest pharmaceuticals on the market, and it makes your brain and your mitochondria work better.
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aniracetam, because it is fat soluble and documented to improve your memory. My second favorite is called phenylpiracetam, which gives you quite a lot of energy. Both of these drugs are available online and are virtually ignored in Western medicine because they’re off patent. I take 800 mg of aniracetam and 100 mg of phenylpiracetam most mornings, and I can feel the difference in my brain as a result. This entire book was written on higher doses of those two substances (as well as every other supplement in the book!).
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