Cellular Health: Mitochondria to Membrane Mastery
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Christa Elza: [00:00:00] You know, if you don't charge your phone at night, it's just not gonna work the next day. Same kind of thing. Cellular health matters in terms of disease prevention. So when we talk about like what creates a chronic disease, it actually begins on the cellular level with damaged DNA. That's what creates cancer cells.
Oxidative stress can damage cells poor signaling, like they don't talk to each other the same way. And so that can create over time. What we see and feel as chronic disease. So like for example, type two diabetes. It's not just blood sugar. It is, we have high blood sugar, but it's also the insulin signaling and the body's ability to accept and receive insulin at the cell membrane, like at the cellular level to allow glucose safely into the cell.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wild and Well Collective Podcast where we believe empowered health is your superpower.
Speaker 3: We have combined our expertise in medicine and nutrition to bring you the latest research expert insights and success stories of people on a mission to live a big [00:01:00] life.
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Sheree Beaumont: Welcome back to another episode of the Wild and Wild Collective on the theme that we seem to be really fixated on because it's such a big passion of Chris's and myself, is longevity. And one of the key components of that is really an understanding our cellular help and what on earth that means. So when it comes to our overall health, we talk a lot about gut health, we talk a lot about hormones, we talk a lot about skin and all of these.
Sometimes symptomatic issues, right? And so Krista is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to understanding what's really going on a cellular level. So today we're gonna dive into what. Even cellular health means how we can optimize our cellular health. And one of my favorite parts that I can remember from biology, the part that the one part of the human body, they didn't [00:02:00] teach us, it was just about plants, in bio class was the mitochondria.
So you may or may not be familiar with that term, but you probably heard it recently and being like, what on earth is it? So Krista, can you share like why is cellular health even an important topic to be discussing today?
Christa Elza: Yeah, I think, you know, people chase symptoms. They wanna know like, oh, I've got low energy, I've got brain fog, I've got my, I'm breaking out, I'm gaining weight.
And I think what most people don't understand is that it really starts at the cellular level. I mean, that's all we're made of is like a bazillion trillion cells. And so it's cellular health then is really the foundation for vitality and for disease prevention and from really from beauty on the inside out, right?
So it's important to kind of recognize that first and cellular health matters first and foremost for energy. I mean, without energy we can't do anything. And inside, and we'll dive a little bit deeper into [00:03:00] mitochondria, but like high level, what it is, is mitochondria. Our organelles inside of the cell.
And it's funny because like in school it always said like there was one mitochondria, but there's actually bazillions of mitochondria in each cell. There's a lot. Maybe not bazillion, but there's a lot. But the purpose of the mitochondria, and you may remember this, is to produce a TP, the electron transport chain, all of that.
But that happens inside that organal of inside of our cells. And that's really the currency of our energy, right? So if our mitochondria aren't functioning well, then we don't feel good. So you can be exhausted even if you're drinking coffee all day long. Like if your body can't produce energy, that's a problem, that's a cellular problem.
You know, if you don't charge your phone at night, it's just not gonna work the next day. Same kind of thing. Cellular health matters in terms of disease prevention. So when we talk about like what creates a chronic disease, it actually begins on the cellular level with damaged DNA. That's what creates cancer cells.
Oxidative stress can damage cells poor signaling, like they don't talk [00:04:00] to each other the same way. And so that can create over time. What we see and feel as chronic disease. So like for example, type two diabetes. It's not just blood sugar. It is, we have high blood sugar, but it's also the insulin signaling and the body's ability to accept and receive insulin at the cell membrane, like at the cellular level to allow glucose safely into the cell.
Like there's a dysfunction there, right? It happens. It ha it has to do with the cell. And then in Alzheimer's we've talked about, you know, we had a whole podcast around brain health, but like Alzheimer's, the brain cells lose their ability to fuel and clear out waste. We have an overload of beta amyloid in the brain.
So again, cellular level. So looking at diseases, we then have to say what's happening, like down to the tiniest part of you that led to this dysfunction. And then also like we'll see a lot with skin health, you know, acne [00:05:00] breakouts, rosacea. Whatever's going on the external skin, the skin is just a reflection of what's happening inside of our cells.
And so we have to say, okay, even premature wrinkles, like, there's something going on because why does a 5-year-old skin look different from an 85-year-old skin? It hap it, it's the cellular level, the oxidative stress the ability to heal the you know, poor cellular repair, poor cellular turnover. So.
That's just kind of how like high level, like why looking at the cell itself and cellular health really does matter.
Sheree Beaumont: And I think sometimes it can be really hot. I know. Even personally, like I'm really good with things I can see. It's kind of why I like bio more than chem, right? And so if you like look at your hands and to even think, like even trying to fathom the idea that there's hundreds of trillions of cells that literally make up, make us up and like we are vibrating right now, these little cells, that's what's making up the look on your face.
[00:06:00] That's what's making up your body. That's what's making up your organs. Absolutely mind boggling and it still fascinates me how incredible the human body is. But if we get down to the cellular level, even though we can't physically see it, if we were to try and look at it, right, I hope that this really lands for people because I know that I, like I said, still struggle to wrap my head around it.
Let's go back to the MI mitochondria because I know there's so much trending in terms of red light. We know that when we travel, and like a lot of people who work in. Flying as a pilot or as a air hostess or flight attendant, the impact it can have. So like looking at how that impacts the mitochondria, if we look at, there are key supplements, like I've heard a lot about coq 10 in terms of mitochondrial optimization, like what are some of the.
The things that can happen to the cells that then damage the mitochondria. And then how do we either repair it? 'cause there'll be a lot of people sitting here listening, going, shit, that's probably me. I've probably done a lot of damage to mit, my [00:07:00] mitochondria. Or like you said before, you've got no energy, but you're drinking heaps of coffee each day.
How do we optimize that a TP production? How do we optimize how I was described mitochondria as the little. Like mouse on the mouse wheel, like little hamster wheel ought to get the energy moving effectively.
Christa Elza: Yeah, I think we can think of mitochondria. It's almost like if the engine of a car is like rusted and just dysfunctional.
It doesn't matter if you're putting fuel and you are pushing it, like it's just not gonna get very far, right? So that's kind of like what the mitochondria is to the cell in terms of being able to do what it's supposed to do. Like the car is supposed to drive and the cell should do whatever that particular cell is supposed to do.
So if the mitochondria just are not healthy, that's a problem. The fact is mitochondria decline with age, so we don't have as many in each particular cell. And so the efficiency drops dramatically and more free radicals are [00:08:00] produced. So that can create oxidative stress and that can create damage inside cells as well.
So there's some things that we can do to really help boost that and we have to be intentional about it, lifestyle. We always wanna start there because if the foundation is not there, then the other things like, you know, supplements and peptides , that I'll mention won't work as efficiently.
So you want to, first and foremost exercise. That is probably the best. Thing that you can do. Hormetic stress is like a stressor that stresses the body, but not so much that it damages the body. So exercise when done in moderation and done, you know, I'm not saying do HIIT workouts for five hours. I'm saying do HIIT walk workouts for 20 minutes, right?
So we wanna have a balance with these things. But exercise is a, an amazing hormetic stress that is a strong stimulator of mitochondrial biogenesis. It's telling the cells like, Hey. Wake up, we need you. We've got a semi crisis here, right? So [00:09:00] things like zone two, cardio going on, walks at an incline, or wearing, wearing a weighted vest on a long walk.
That's a, an example of zone two. You can talk, it's, your heart rate is up. So you wanna do zone two. Strength training always. Another hormetic stress would be fasting. And so again. Fasting as a whole of the topic, but doing at least 12 to 14 hours sometimes longer depending on your health and your cycle if you're a woman, et cetera.
But fasting triggers that autophagy, which I know that you've done some longer fast, fast, free. And you talk about this on your social medias for sure, but like, it's where the body is forced and to clear out the old, it's saying, oh my gosh, like we don't have fuel. We better like clean up what we got.
So it kind of promotes. The body to clear out the old weak mitochondria and make new ones. And mitochondria are interesting. They can actually it's just fascinating, the intelligence, they can actually cut off the part that's not working and regenerate the part that was working within one organelle, the mitochondria.
It's pretty [00:10:00] fascinating. So stressors like that can help. The mitochondria become very efficient and only save what's working and eliminate and destroy what's not working in that in that organal cold exposure is another one. That, pros and cons. That's a whole other topic, but cold exposure and sauna.
Both of those are examples of. Hormetic stress, that signals that mitochondria, that like, Hey, I need you to adapt. I need you to grow bigger because you've got a little bit of a stress here. So that is something that I would start with. And then beyond that, you mentioned like coq 10 and Carnitine. Both of those really help.
Shuttle fuel fats into the mitochondria. And so, our cell is very protective of things and so there are certain shuttles like you have to have a coq 10 to bring some nutrients in. You have to have carnitine to bring in fatty acids. And so we can supplement with those things and that can definitely augment what our cell is seeing.
Magnesium, B vitamins, hands down. I think most people [00:11:00] need those because we utilize a lot of that with our daily stress. And so we don't oftentimes get enough of these in our diet. We don't absorb enough and so magnesium and be complex, really great for kind of augmenting and helping the health of the mitochondria.
And then in terms of like molecules and peptides that you can take NAD. Really popular right now, or the precursors like NMN and NR that you can take orally. There's also peptides and I'll just rattle some off and, you know, if you're interested in them, let me know. But motc, SS 31 CJC Immoral, and all of these peptides, they're typically best, they're most effective when you do an injection.
But these support mitochondrial repair and energy. So these are kind like the icing on the cake, like once you've got your lifestyle down. These things are really fun to explore, to like really take it to the next level.
Sheree Beaumont: Yeah. I think when we think about this. As a concept or as a topic [00:12:00] cellular, how you might be like, cool, okay, I'm giving a science lesson right now. My brain is gonna explode. But in reality, this is, we're talking about your most apart from time, in my opinion, energy is your most valuable currency. I mean, you could have a bucket load of time and if you're not feeling switched on or if you don't have the energy to go and do what you wanna do, that's gonna be one of the biggest.
Life sucks that you could possibly have, right? And so we're not just sitting here going, okay, cool. We're talking about these tiny little things that you can't see. It's really looking at. What this is doing in terms of your, you operating at your optimal day to day, but also in terms of disease prevention.
And so you talked about, and I, you know, I love fasting. Not intermittent, but you know, I love the fasting. But some of this, when it comes to things like, cancer or when it comes to this oxidative stress, or when it comes to the cellular health, which is really what we're talking about today.
There are these concepts or these words that I think are really fun apoptosis. Can you explain that for me? But also this idea or this concept, which you kind of [00:13:00] talked about with the, you know, how the mitochondria can kind of replay, repair and clean up itself and the cells do all of that within them, but like, what are these zombie cells and how does all of this kind of relate to disease or disease in the body?
And really knowing that it starts from how healthy our cells are.
Christa Elza: Yeah. So the cells have to, they have to recognize, okay, we're old we're no longer functioning, and then they should self implode and, you know, lysozymes and lysosomes, they're in the cell as well. Like they should eat up. And you know, basically that's what apoptosis is.
It is program cell death. Okay. We've reached a certain age, whatever the age for that particular cell is. Probably not working very efficiently anymore. So we're gonna do program cell death destroy, and it's like taking the old malfunctioning cars off the road, right? It's just like, you gotta go, you're taking up space.
Because if they don't then they start [00:14:00] to release chemicals that create inflammation. So the word senescence basically means, and that's what the technical word is for zombie cells. These are cells that are not going through that process. They're like, mm, no, but we, I don't know. Something's not working here.
We're not imploding. Okay? So then they're just hanging out. They don't divide. They also don't die. They're just sitting there. And those cells can put out inflammatory signals. And that's a problem because then the immune system is revved up because it's like, hmm. This is a bad cell, but for whatever reason, we can't get rid of it.
That accumulates with age and there is some rationale that we need them, like we do need some level of senescent cells to kind of, again, maybe it's a hormetic kind of response in the body, but when they accumulate to the point that. It's becoming now a problem and creating systemic inflammation.
That's where we say, okay, this is a problem and [00:15:00] this can become more of a problem as we age. It can accelerate things like arthritis, cardiovascular disease, skin, aging. So there's some things that we can do to help this process along of like, okay, I know that I've reached a certain age chronologically, so I probably have more senescent cells.
Intermittent fasting. That again we've mentioned can initiate that apoptosis. So it kind of gives the body a nudge of like, ooh. We've gotta really clean this up. 'Cause we're not getting a lot of nutrients, so we really need to like, take care of this. And so intermittent fasting can be really helpful for this.
There are STIC compounds that you can take either a little bit every month or I like to do it once a quarter. So every three months or so I'll do this combination. The one that I use is by the brand Qualia and it contains ottin higher doses of Ottin, which is a molecule that has been known and shown in some studies to.
Help remove some of the zombie cells, senescent cells quercetin, high doses of curcumin so they can help kind of [00:16:00] clear some of those things out. Again, you don't wanna do too much too often because senescent cells do play a role. It's not like we wanna clear everything out, right? So some of them do serve a purpose, but it's when they accumulate.
So I like to do it about once a quarter. Exercise is a natural lytic. You know, it gets your heart rate up, you're clearing things out. Your body has that hormetic stress. It's like, Ooh, we gotta clear this out to be as robust as possible. And so, these kind of things are being studied, like more lytic peptides and things like that can really help target these particular zombie cells.
But that's really what senescence is and why we just don't want those to accumulate because that, again, is cellular at the cellular level, driving some chronic inflammation and disease.
Sheree Beaumont: And you talked about at the cellular level, which again, like can be really hard to fathom and I just wanna drive home that I, I understand when there's confusion there.
But earlier when we were talking about the mitochondria, you were saying that we need certain, like things like the carnitine to help shuttle things [00:17:00] into the cells so the mitochondria can do what they do. And so if we think about the cell, like I imagine it's this like beautiful little bowl. And we know that hydration is one of the key things can be really, really important for cellular health.
But if we think about this beautiful cell, how do we keep each individual gorgeous little cell super healthy? One is gonna be hydration, but part of that is the membrane, right? When we are looking at the. If you wanna explain what the membrane is, but the outside of the cell. And then the ability for things to get in and out of the cell is just as vital as like things like the mitochondria that are inside the cell and functioning optimally.
Christa Elza: Yeah, that's a good point because the cell itself, like each, in a human body, every cell has a membrane. And you can think about the membrane as kind of keeping the cell separate, right? So it holds all the organelles inside of it, almost like skin to our body. But the cell needs to be more fluid, right?
You want it to be to where we can get nutrients in and out of it. The problem [00:18:00] is when we don't have the right and that font, that cell membrane is made of lipids. So that's why cholesterol is important in our body. Like we, we have to have fats in our body. Part of it was because it's, our membrane is made mostly of fat.
So if the membrane gets stiff. And a lot of times that can happen from processed foods. We have omega six that we need, but oftentimes we have way more omega six in our diet than we need to. And that ratio between omega six and Omega-3 that's in our body can disrupt the cells and the cells can become more stiff, and that stiffness then does not allow the nutrients in and out.
And so that's a problem. So having a good ratio and having, you know. Eating things like the Mediterranean diet or adding olive oil to things, avocado oil, eating fatty fish, taking an Omega supplement are, it's really important for the health of that membrane so that communication between the cells getting nutrients into the cells possible.
So I always like to start with diet but you can do things like adding [00:19:00] Omega-3, like a fish oil supplementation. You can add phosphatidylcholine is another. Supplement you could take that repairs the membrane. It, gives the membrane nutrients. But again, like coming back to diet, but, and recognizing like, okay, my diet does matter, and getting healthy fats does matter all the way down to the cellular membrane.
Sheree Beaumont: So if we were to whittle it down to like, just, if this is feeling quite overwhelming, but as it can do but if we were just to whittle it down to maybe three things that people could really focus on a daily basis, if someone was coming to you and be like, look, I, if we're not looking at specific symptoms in general, we're just wanting to optimize our cellular health and we know that everything starts from this level, what would be like your top three things to say to someone?
Okay, let's just. Start here.
Christa Elza: Yeah. I think, you know, it's good to kind of understand high level, like what's actually going on, why it's important, and then, okay, cool. Don't really care. Don't, you know, like you said, like cells, unless you're looking through a [00:20:00] microscope, you really can't see them. And so it can be hard to conceptualize what's going on.
So I think, okay, we've talked a little bit about the why, and then like, okay, what does that mean for you? So I would say I can't really. Bring it down to three. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna add a few more, but number one, real food, like really focus on like, protein, colorful diet and omega rich foods, right?
For the cell membrane and the nutrients. Number two, move every single day. I tell my patients like, move at least 30 minutes intentionally. Like, don't go on a mosey, go on like a walk, like you're late to a flight and you're trying to get to the gate like you're really walking. You know, you wanna add a little bit of that hormetic stress.
So like, maybe wear a weighted vest on your walk, maybe do a sauna. Maybe do a short cold plunge, turn down your shower. So it's like, woo, you know, it's like stimulating you. Maybe fa fasting in safe doses of time, like 12 to 14 hour, whatever you can handle. But that in itself, you know, add a little bit of stress once you've nailed those down.
Like start to do some of those supplements. You know, coq 10 [00:21:00] Magnesium, like I said, B Vitamins. NAD like those things can be really helpful. And then you wanna prioritize recovery. You don't wanna constantly be in tear down mode of your body, so you want to make sure that you are getting good sleep.
You're getting good recovery so that your body can clear out some of those toxins and actually have the ability to clear some of these bad cells out, right? Like we gotta have a good, strong immune system, we've gotta have good deep sleep. And then fasting or using, maybe the s lytics are gonna help with some of those zombie cells.
And so if you are, you know, I would start with maybe twice a year, maybe four times a year like I do. Doing sly, like I mentioned Qualia, we'll put that link in the bio. That's a good one. I trust that brand. And then just reducing toxic burden is really helpful for ourselves because our body has to clear out everything and we make toxins just sitting here.
So making sure, like you mentioned hydration and filtering your water and reducing plastics and your exposure where you can really goes a long way when it comes to. [00:22:00] Overall health. So hopefully this didn't get too in the weeds with like the science behind it, but we've gotta understand a little bit, like kind of.
If we're gonna zoom in, you know, you've gotta kind of zoom into what the problem is. It's almost like looking, you know, from outer space, like, well, why is the environment, you know, why is the ozone layer, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Well, let's zone into all the way down to the woman using hairspray. It's like we gotta zone into like what's actually driving the bigger problem.
And so if we're looking and wanting to feel better. Then for a hot minute, we gotta zone into like what's actually driving that all the way down to the real root of it, which oftentimes is a cellular answer.
Sheree Beaumont: I think this has been such a helpful conversation, and it is just good to remind yourself that we aren't just these.
Beings with these arms and legs and a few organs that were like running round and then questioning, okay, it has to be the gut and it has to be the, it's like, well, if your, if your cells that make up your gut aren't healthy, that's gonna cause more of an issue too. So it's really been. [00:23:00] Helpful, I think like even for me is like a nice little reminder to come back to the foundations and to also see that it can be really simple.
So I appreciate everything you've shared and if you're wanting to dive deeper and do some of those more intense things to optimize, like we have shared some of those as well. So I hope you guys got heaps out of this episode and we will see you again next time.
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