Energy: the work of mitochondria

Some people have more energy than others. That’s probably because their mitochondria are doing a good job. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cells. They are organelles (little organs) that convert glucose and oxygen into cellular fuel. They also help produce essential hormones including estrogen, testosterone, and cortisol, and they transform chemical energy into electrical energy, making it possible for organs and cells to communicate.

Our mitochondria started out as bacteria. One and a half billion years ago, the planet’s only life forms were single-celled. Over time, multicellular life-forms evolved into bacteria, and the bacteria evolved into mitochondria, the organelles that fuel living creatures (vast oversimplification). As Nick Paumgarten writes in The New Yorker, “It’s not inconceivable that the rest of the body…is merely an elaborate and sometimes clumsy apparatus for the nourishment of the mitochondria.” In this way of thinking, our cardiovascular systems are essentially a delivery system for the oxygen required by the mitochondria.

Martin Picard, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center specializes in the connection between the mind and mitochondria. He sees the human body as a social network and views mitochondria as “cellular antenna, or little brains that receive, process, and integrate information.”  He has found that “Cells age faster if you expose them to stress. They consume more oxygen. They’re wasting energy, and we don’t know why.” He has also found that mood has a direct effect on mitochondria and that one in five thousand humans have mitochondria disease—genetic defects that cause them to be tired all the time. Other scientists have determined that antibiotics, environmental chemicals, over-used pharmaceutical, fructose, bad light, and electromagnetic fields are energy disrupters. I don’t know about that.

Much remains to be learned about mitochondria. As Paumgarten says, “The precise workings of the metabolic system, its nuances and contingencies, are, in many respects, an enduring mystery.”

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