Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / Chris Masterjohn (2025) - Mitochondria First: Food, Function, and Longevity

Transcript

Chris Masterjohn (2025) - Mitochondria First: Food, Function, and Longevity · The Joe Rogan Recap

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Joe Rogan Recap and before we get going, please
• 0:03
  follow us right here on Spotify to make sure you get sight of
• 0:06
  our latest episodes in your feed.
• 0:08
  It's great to get into this. We're really tackling something
• 0:11
  fundamental today, the absolute machinery that dictates our
• 0:16
  health, how we age, our peak performance.
• 0:19
  We're going right to the core. We're talking about
• 0:20
  mitochondrial function, energy metabolism, and we're using some
• 0:25
  fascinating sources on creatine, light therapy, and even some
• 0:29
  pretty controversial dietary science.
• 0:31
  That's right. Our mission today is, I think,
• 0:34
  pretty straightforward, give you a real North Star for how to
• 0:37
  think about your own cellular energy and just how much control
• 0:41
  you have. A huge amount of control.
• 0:42
  You're not just, you know, a victim of aging.
• 0:45
  Exactly. But first, since we're on the
• 0:47
  topic of energy and, well, fatigue, let's finally put that
• 0:51
  Thanksgiving myth to bed. Yes, the Tryptophan myth.
• 0:54
  It just will not die. It really won't.
• 0:56
  It's this persistent idea that the Turkey makes you sleepy
• 0:59
  because of the tryptophan. It's just one of those cultural
• 1:01
  things that sticks around. And it's completely wrong.
• 1:04
  I mean, Turkey isn't even that high in tryptophan.
• 1:06
  Not at all. Whey protein actually has more,
• 1:08
  and even if you took that amount of tryptophan on its own, it
• 1:12
  wouldn't just knock you out. So what's really going on?
• 1:15
  It's the gorging, simple as that.
• 1:16
  Our biology is wired for it. When you're hungry, you're
• 1:19
  alert. You're, you know, like a lion on
• 1:21
  the prowl. Your sympathetic nervous system
• 1:24
  is firing. You're ready to hunt.
• 1:26
  Exactly. But once you've had that huge
• 1:28
  feast, the body's job changes the parasympathetic system, the
• 1:32
  rest and digest system kicks in. It's a signal that says, OK, we
• 1:37
  got the resources, time to power down and process.
• 1:39
  That switch from prowling to resting, that's a perfect lead
• 1:43
  in to the core idea you spent, what, 20 years researching?
• 1:47
  21, yeah. That mitochondrial function is
• 1:49
  at the root of everything Health, disease, all of it.
• 1:53
  It is the master metric. If you want to understand
• 1:55
  health, you have to understand your mitochondria.
• 1:57
  They're the power plants of the body.
• 1:59
  They generate and distribute ATP.
• 2:01
  That's the energy currency for every single thing we do.
• 2:04
  Every repair, every thought. Everything.
• 2:08
  And that completely changes how we should think about something
• 2:10
  like sleep. Right, so what's the real
• 2:13
  purpose of deep sleep then? Deep sleep is when the power
• 2:16
  plant gets a scheduled break. It's mainly to give the
• 2:19
  mitochondria a rest. They don't switch off
• 2:21
  completely, but they turn their work volume way down.
• 2:24
  And the body can catch up it. Allows the body to build up its
• 2:26
  energy reserves and start working on the maintenance
• 2:29
  backlog from the day you're literally recharging the plant
• 2:32
  itself. OK.
• 2:33
  So if the mitochondria are the power plant making the energy,
• 2:36
  let's talk about how that energy gets moved around.
• 2:39
  Let's start with creatine. Good place to start.
• 2:41
  So the analogy is mitochondria are the power plant and creatine
• 2:46
  is the power grid. That is a highly accurate
• 2:49
  analogy and it explains why creatine is so powerful across
• 2:52
  the entire body, not just in muscles.
• 2:55
  Right. There was a great recent study
• 2:57
  on this actually. It was focused on the brain, not
• 2:59
  muscles. They took sleep deprived
• 3:00
  subjects, kept them up all night and give them 20 grams of
• 3:04
  creatine. And what happened?
• 3:06
  They performed significantly better on complex brain puzzles
• 3:10
  and they complained less about feeling tired.
• 3:12
  The creatine basically increased the capacity of their energy
• 3:15
  grid, letting them function longer before they crash.
• 3:18
  So it's much more than a muscle building supplement.
• 3:20
  It's a systemic A neuroprotectant, a recovery
• 3:24
  agent. It's profoundly systemic.
• 3:27
  That's why the creatine system is in almost every cell.
• 3:29
  It's in your retina. It helps pump stomach acid.
• 3:32
  It's critical for sperm motility.
• 3:34
  And I saw the data on traumatic brain injury TBI.
• 3:37
  Oh, it's remarkable. 20 grams a day for six months was shown to
• 3:41
  double the rate of healing. It's shoring up the energy
• 3:44
  distribution when the system is under the absolute most stress.
• 3:48
  Let's move to other ways to stimulate those cellular
• 3:50
  engines. What about light red?
• 3:52
  Light therapy is everywhere now. It is, and it works because red
• 3:55
  and near infrared light actually target the mitochondria
• 3:58
  directly. Those wavelengths penetrate
• 4:01
  tissue and help them produce energy more efficiently.
• 4:03
  How does it do that? It helps to structure the water
• 4:08
  inside the cell, which makes all the chemical reactions for
• 4:11
  making ATP run a lot smoother. It's like making the whole
• 4:14
  engine run cleaner. And it's not just a local
• 4:16
  effect, right? I remember reading about a study
• 4:18
  where they blasted red light on someone's chest.
• 4:21
  Eyes covered and their eyesight improved the next day.
• 4:25
  That's the systemic benefit in action.
• 4:27
  If you improve energy production in one place, the whole system
• 4:30
  can benefit. It's the same reason getting
• 4:32
  morning sunlight is so important.
• 4:34
  It's a signal to the brain to wake up all the mitochondria
• 4:36
  from their, you know, nightly nap.
• 4:38
  And the red and infrared light from the sun is strongest in the
• 4:41
  morning before you have to worry about the UV.
• 4:43
  Precisely. Now, moving from something
• 4:45
  beneficial like light to something trickier, let's talk
• 4:48
  about methylene blue MBB. OK, this one definitely needs
• 4:51
  that analogy you use. It does, so think of your main
• 4:55
  energy pathway in the mitochondria as a major highway
• 4:57
  for electrons. Methylene blue.
• 5:00
  It's like a shady taxi driver who knows all the back roads.
• 5:03
  A nonspecific rewirer I think is the term a redex cycler.
• 5:07
  Yes, if that main highway is blocked for some reason, a
• 5:11
  genetic issue maybe MB creates detours.
• 5:14
  It forces the electrons to keep moving, which helps you produce
• 5:17
  some energy. But what if the main highway is
• 5:19
  fine? Then the shady taxi just creates
• 5:22
  chaos. Absolute traffic jams.
• 5:25
  If you're healthy and that path is clear, MB will actually
• 5:27
  result in less ATP production. So you absolutely have to test
• 5:30
  before even thinking about. It vitally important and what's
• 5:33
  confusing is that at around 10 milligrams, it also acts as an
• 5:36
  Mao inhibitor. It has this antidepressant
• 5:38
  effect that can trick you into thinking it's helping your
• 5:40
  mitochondria when it might actually be harming them.
• 5:43
  That's really tricky. OK, what about something more
• 5:46
  mainstream like Coq 10? You call that the ferry?
• 5:49
  Right. Coq 10 is part of that main
• 5:51
  highway. Is the ferry carrying electrons
• 5:52
  along the path. It also helps with making new
• 5:55
  mitochondria, but it has this weird dose paradox.
• 5:57
  Where more isn't better. Exactly.
• 6:00
  The sweet spot for most people is about 100 to 200 milligrams a
• 6:03
  day. But studies show if you go up
• 6:05
  to, say, 400 milligrams, outcomes for things like blood
• 6:08
  pressure can actually get worse. It's another traffic jam.
• 6:11
  Too many fairies colliding. That's the idea, but again, this
• 6:15
  is where personalization is key because for some people, a huge
• 6:19
  dose can be a miracle. You had that client, the one
• 6:22
  with a menorrhea. Yes, a woman who lost her period
• 6:25
  at 28 and for 10 years, nothing worked.
• 6:28
  We did detailed mitochondrial testing and found she needed a
• 6:31
  massive dose. We're talking 700 to 800
• 6:35
  milligrams a day, two weeks. After a decade, her cycle came
• 6:39
  back in two weeks. It just shows you the power of
• 6:41
  getting the dose exactly right for your own biology.
• 6:45
  That's incredible. So this brings us to aging.
• 6:48
  You said mitochondrial function drops about 1% a year after age
• 6:51
  18. So by 70 or 80 we've lost half
• 6:54
  our energy capacity. That's the average, yes, Is the
• 6:56
  result of all the cumulative hits we take.
• 6:58
  Injuries, sickness, poor nutrition.
• 7:01
  The mitochondria have to spend so much energy on immediate
• 7:03
  repairs that they neglect their own long term maintenance.
• 7:06
  It's a slow, vicious cycle. But this is the crucial part.
• 7:09
  Age itself only explains about 25% of that decline.
• 7:13
  The other 75% is under your control.
• 7:15
  That is the entire point. You have immense influence over
• 7:19
  that downward trend line. So you want to build the highest
• 7:21
  possible peak in your 20s to create a bigger buffer for later
• 7:24
  in life. Exactly.
• 7:25
  And that's where the five pillars come in, the things that
• 7:28
  govern that 75%. OK, let's run through them
• 7:30
  pillar one. Creatine status.
• 7:33
  We've talked about the power grid.
• 7:34
  You have to keep it robust. That means either eating 1 to 2
• 7:38
  lbs of red meat or wild salmon a day, or you need to supplement.
• 7:43
  And for vegetarians or vegans? It's almost impossible from
• 7:46
  diet. You'd need like half a kilogram
• 7:48
  of tofu plus half a kilogram of quinoa every single day.
• 7:51
  It's just not practical. Pillar 2.
• 7:54
  Sunlight. Morning Light.
• 7:55
  We've covered that. It sets your body's clock for
• 7:58
  adaptation and energy production.
• 7:59
  Pillar 3 is nutrition, and this is a big one.
• 8:02
  Huge. 93% of Americans are deficient in at least one
• 8:05
  nutrient. So the rules are eat nose to
• 8:08
  tail. Get your liver, heart, bone
• 8:11
  broth. Those are packed with cofactors.
• 8:13
  And diversity. Diversify your proteins, fish,
• 8:15
  shellfish, dairy, and quantities of signal.
• 8:19
  At least a third of your plate should be protein.
• 8:22
  And aim for, you know, 80% of your meals to be Whole Foods you
• 8:26
  prepare yourself, get the grains and process stuff out.
• 8:29
  Pillar 4. Exercise, and not just one kind.
• 8:32
  No, not just VO2 Max. You need everything.
• 8:35
  Endurance, strength, mobility, agility, balance, reaction time.
• 8:39
  This is why playing this sport is so good.
• 8:41
  It trains your brain and your body at the same time.
• 8:44
  Which brings us to that really surprising data about which
• 8:47
  athletes live the longest. It's fascinating.
• 8:49
  It's not the endurance athletes we always hear about.
• 8:51
  It's gymnasts and pole vaulters. They live on average 8 years
• 8:55
  longer than the general population.
• 8:57
  Eight years, while cyclists, who we think of as the picture of
• 9:00
  health, only live about two years longer.
• 9:02
  Right, it suggests longevity is driven by a lot more than just
• 9:05
  cardio respiratory fitness. So what's the theory?
• 9:07
  Why the gymnasts? It seems to boil down to
• 9:10
  functional mechanical movement. All the stretching, the
• 9:13
  coordination, spending time upside down.
• 9:15
  One theory is that this kind of movement improves the body's
• 9:18
  physical structure, which helps the immune system.
• 9:20
  It might improve lymphatic flow and make it easier for T cells
• 9:23
  to do their surveillance work against things like cancer.
• 9:26
  That makes sense. And then there's the injury tax.
• 9:28
  Yes. Every time you get hurt, a
• 9:31
  concussion, a broken bone, even just chronic overtraining, your
• 9:35
  mitochondria have to divert massive resources to that acute
• 9:38
  healing. And that takes away from their
• 9:40
  own long term repair. It's a systemic tax.
• 9:43
  The TBI is a great example. The brain just sucks up energy
• 9:46
  from the whole body to heal itself, and you might recover,
• 9:49
  but the system as a whole rarely gets back to 100% of what it was
• 9:52
  before. That's part of that 1% decline.
• 9:55
  OK, we've talked about the acute tax of injury.
• 9:57
  What about the chronic tax from our diet?
• 9:59
  This leads us right into the seed oil and cholesterol debate.
• 10:02
  Right, it's time to get this straight.
• 10:05
  Atherosclerosis. The plaque in your arteries
• 10:08
  isn't caused by cholesterol just floating around.
• 10:10
  It's caused by your immune system quarantining particles
• 10:13
  that have become damaged. Oxidized rancid.
• 10:16
  Exactly. Particles that have been loaded
• 10:18
  up with unstable polyunsaturated fats, PUFAS from seed oils.
• 10:23
  The plaque is a quarantine zone your body builds to wall off
• 10:26
  that toxic rancid material. And the original data from the
• 10:29
  60s that pushed everyone towards seed oils was shaky at best.
• 10:33
  Especially the long term data. The LA Veterans Administration
• 10:37
  study showed a small short term benefit for heart disease, sure,
• 10:41
  but then later in life, the cancer risk for the seed oil
• 10:43
  group shot way up. And then there was the Minnesota
• 10:45
  Coronary survey data that got what hidden in a basement?
• 10:49
  Literally. And when it was finally analyzed
• 10:51
  decades later, it showed the seed oil group had double the
• 10:53
  aphiosclerosis at autopsy and that drops in cholesterol were
• 10:57
  linked to more heart disease risks.
• 10:58
  Completely backwards from what we were told.
• 11:00
  The complete opposite. The evidence had to be actively
• 11:03
  ignored to push that narrative forward.
• 11:05
  So if high cholesterol isn't the main cause, what is it a sign
• 11:10
  of? It's often a sign of a sluggish
• 11:11
  metabolism, a sign that your brain isn't getting that state
• 11:14
  of abundance signal. If the brain thinks there's a
• 11:17
  scarcity of resources, it slows everything down, including the
• 11:21
  rate at which cholesterol is used and turned over.
• 11:24
  Which brings us back to Pillar 3 again.
• 11:26
  Thyroid hormone, which signals that abundance, is made from
• 11:29
  tyrosine, from protein and iodine.
• 11:31
  Exactly. And we're getting less iodine.
• 11:33
  We're exposed to things like bromine and flame retardants and
• 11:37
  fluoride and water that compete for the iodine receptors.
• 11:41
  It was a disaster when salt was demonized because people stopped
• 11:44
  getting iodized salt and we saw goiters coming back.
• 11:46
  Right. And just to be clear about heart
• 11:48
  attacks, it's not the plaque slowly closing the artery that's
• 11:52
  the main danger. No, not usually.
• 11:54
  The vast majority of heart attacks and strokes happen when
• 11:57
  an inflamed plaque ruptures. A blood clot forms on that
• 12:00
  rupture, and that's what causes the acute blockage.
• 12:03
  Which is where something like Nattokinis comes in.
• 12:05
  Yes, the enzyme Formado, it's studied for its ability to help
• 12:08
  breakdown those blood clots. This has been a huge amount of
• 12:11
  information, but it all connects back to the mitochondria.
• 12:15
  As we wrap this up, let's redefine the goal.
• 12:17
  Health isn't just the absence of disease.
• 12:20
  That's a terrible definition. The true North Star should be
• 12:23
  abundant energy and adaptability.
• 12:26
  A great way to measure your progress is to look at your
• 12:29
  energy to anxiety ratio and your libido.
• 12:32
  Anxiety is just wasted. Energy.
• 12:34
  It's energy that's losing control of its distribution.
• 12:38
  Exactly. Like in your core principle for
• 12:40
  achieving that is Food First, pharma last.
• 12:43
  Always you have to build the foundation with food and
• 12:45
  movement first. Optimize the mitochondria before
• 12:48
  you even think about supplements and pharma should be the
• 12:51
  absolute last resort, especially since so many drugs like statins
• 12:55
  are actually mitochondrial toxins.
• 12:57
  That's a perfect framework. OK, here's a final thought for
• 12:59
  you to take away. The average age of an NIH funded
• 13:02
  researcher has gone up by one year every year since 1984.
• 13:06
  Which suggests we're getting a lot less of that new long term,
• 13:09
  groundbreaking research like those eight-year plus trials
• 13:12
  that gave us so much insight 50 years ago.
• 13:15
  So since we know those data gaps exist, how can you, the
• 13:18
  listener, structure your own personal health investigation to
• 13:21
  account for that missing long term data?
• 13:24
  Be your own long term study. That's the take away.
• 13:26
  An excellent thought if you want to dive deeper into this work in
• 13:30
  the mitochondrial testing, you can find the resources at
• 13:32
  chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com and MiTo dot me.
• 13:37
  Thanks for joining us for this deep dive.