Celeste McGovern explores our body’s tiniest bio-engines and how they may hold the key to preventing and treating most disease
When we think about our health, most of us tend to picture the big organs—the heart vigorously pumping blood, the lungs drawing in oxygen, the stomach digesting food and the brain ceaselessly orchestrating it all with electrical impulses.
If we could zoom in past the membranes and fluids, down to the machinery of the cells that keep us running, however, we’d find tiny bean-shaped structures working tirelessly to keep us alive. These microscopic engines, called mitochondria, are often described as the “powerhouses” of the cell, but it turns out they do far more than combine our food with the oxygen we breathe to create the energy of life.
Besides fueling every action in the body, from breathing and blinking to moving and thinking—an astonishing feat in itself—an explosion of new research is showing that mitochondria are perhaps the most important players in determining how we age and how likely we are to develop chronic conditions like heart disease, cancer and dementia. What’s more, we can influence our mitochondrial health to stave off, and treat, disease.
For decades, mitochondria have been viewed as just energy generators for cells, conducting a process called oxidative phosphorylation to churn nutrients into ATP, the cellular currency molecule that powers everything from muscle contraction to brain signaling.
Our bodies are packed with mitochondria. Each of our cells contains anywhere from dozens to millions of these microscopic organelles, depending on its energy demands. Heart, muscle and brain cells, which work nonstop, are saturated with them. A single neuron can have as many as 2 million mitochondria chugging away inside to generate the energy for thoughts, memories or other functions.
What do mitochondria do beyond energy production? It turns out they also function as a sort of cellular command center. As microscopic antennas, they monitor the environment both inside and outside our bodies. They sense our nutrient supplies, stress levels and toxin exposures and then send signals that influence hormone production, immune system and inflammatory responses.
Mitochondria help control how cells grow, repair and even self-destruct—in a process called apoptosis—for the good of the body when they’re too damaged to function properly.
Thus, mitochondria underlie every aspect of human health, and when they’re functioning well, the system hums. They don’t just keep us alive from day to day. They may determine how long we live, how well we age and how vulnerable we are to disease.
“Mitochondria really are the fulcrum of health, the drivers of health and disease,” says Kristina Kristen, health researcher and author of Beyond Just Genes: Welcome to the Energetic Revolution! (KristinaKristinWellness, 2025). “They are our bio-engines. We understand the importance of the engines in our cars, but somehow we’ve overlooked the importance of our own engines, our mitochondria.
“The difference between a living human being and a cadaver is energy,” she says, “and that energy is from the mitochondria.” Mitochondria, in essence, are the life force.
It’s interesting that mitochondria even have their own DNA, passed from mothers to offspring—a unique and exclusively maternal inheritance of that life force.
“Mitochondria are dynamic and give us the ability to sense and perceive, integrate information, adapt, and thrive,” says Dr Martin Picard, associate professor of behavioral medicine and director of the Mitochondrial Psychobiology Group at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Picard coined the term psychobiology to describe the link between the human experience and molecular and energetic processes inside mitochondria. In short, it’s the mysterious but powerful mind-body connection that medicine recognizes in placebos but has otherwise neglected.
Picard calls it the “mind-mitochondria connection”—the physiological mechanism that links negative experiences such as stress, trauma and loneliness to poor health outcomes such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes and decreased lifespan and links positive experiences to positive health outcomes.
“Recently our team found that during psychological stress, mitochondria release pieces of themselves that can be detected in blood and saliva,” Picard says. These mitochondrial bits are a new biomarker for “psychosocial stress,” linking mental and mitochondrial energetic stress. “Mitochondria communicate states of threat or well-being,” he adds.1
Picard’s laboratory team has also identified novel membrane structures for mitochondrial communication, which demonstrate that human hair graying is reversible and is linked to life stress.2 They also show that “good” and “bad” moods and chronic stress are connected to mitochondrial functioning and disease symptoms.3
More than just psychological thermostats, mitochondria are seen as a common thread in the most critical diseases of our day. A growing pile of research links mitochondrial dysfunction to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and even mental illnesses including depression, anxiety and schizophrenia.
In one headline-grabbing study, for example, scientists reported that they could reverse dementia-like memory loss in mice by supercharging the mitochondrial activity in their damaged brain cells.4
Impaired mitochondria in brain cells—some of the most energy-hungry cells in the body—have been seen as a hallmark of diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s for years. But before this study, it wasn’t certain whether they were a cause or consequence of the conditions.
“This work is the first to establish a cause-and-effect link between mitochondrial dysfunction and symptoms related to neurodegenerative diseases, suggesting that impaired mitochondrial activity could be at the origin of the onset of neuronal degeneration,” says Giovanni Marsicano, a neuroscientist from the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM).
Even psychiatric conditions seem to have mitochondrial disruption as a trigger. The brain’s mood-regulating circuits and cognitive functions require huge amounts of energy, and studies suggest mitochondrial abnormalities can contribute to altered function and stress resilience.5
Last year, researchers from 15 medical centers, including Dr Picard’s lab, published the first-ever platform to map the mind-mitochondria connection. They examined over 700 sections of the human brain to see how mitochondria specialize throughout the brain architecture and in different types of brain cells. Their findings have implications in research on cognitive decline, neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders like depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.6
The prevailing chemical and neurotransmitter paradigm of psychiatry that underlies ineffective and dangerous drug treatments like antidepressants, anxiolytics and anti-psychotics is crumbling. And this new field of “metabolic psychiatry”—which is really a mitochondrial view of mental illness—is emerging.
A review paper by 39 researchers in nine countries states that “brain function is critically dependent on energy metabolism” and that “major aberrations exist in brain bioenergetics in neuropsychiatric disorders.” They suggest treatments targeting these conditions metabolically, that is, at the mitochondrial level.
For example, they note that the metabolically adaptive ketogenic diet has been far more successful in treating seizure activity than traditional drugs and has recently been adopted for disorders including anxiety, depression and schizophrenia. Such metabolic and mitochondrial therapies will have to be explored to meet the “large unmet need” for successful treatments in psychiatry, they say.7
Despite huge spending and research into cancer, it continues to claim more lives year on year and now outstrips cardiovascular death in some countries.
By definition, cancer is uncontrolled cell division, a process that mitochondria regulate. “Cancer involves chronic damage to the number, structure and function of mitochondria,” says Dr Thomas Seyfried, a professor of biology, genetics and biochemistry at Boston College and one of the world’s loudest voices against the prevailing genetic theory of cancer.
Cancer-causing damage to mitochondria arises from diet and lifestyle factors, says Seyfried, along with radiation, chronic inflammation, toxic chemicals, inherited mutations and aging.
These damage mitochondrial cell walls and gradually disrupt energy production, causing the cell to switch to the ancient fermentation pathways that are a hallmark of all cancer types. Deprive cancer cells of the glucose and glutamine at the foundation of these pathways (via a ketogenic diet, for example), he says, and cancer starves to death.
It’s not a new theory—Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize for it in the 1920s—but it has largely been neglected by mainstream medicine, which has long considered cancer a genetic disease characterized by a myriad of mutations that drive cancer progression.8
Now, mounting evidence suggests the dysregulated metabolism in cancer cells is more than a hallmark; it’s the underlying cause. A 2025 review found gene mutations don’t cause the distorted metabolic state in cancer, including glucose, glutamine and fatty acid metabolism. They only maintain it. This theory may lead to more effective and less toxic cancer therapies.9
Next to the brain, the heart is one of the most energy-hungry organs in the body, relying heavily on mitochondria to keep its constant rhythm. When mitochondrial function declines, heart muscle cells struggle to contract efficiently. For years, research has linked mitochondrial dysfunction to heart failure and ischemic heart disease, in which the heart is starved of oxygen and energy.10
CVD is often associated with diabetes, and the two may start the same way—with how our bodies process glucose and fats. Mitochondria are central to that process, and their efficiency is often impaired, leading to insulin resistance, reduced energy production and increased fat accumulation in tissues. The result is a vicious cycle: Poor mitochondrial function worsens insulin resistance, which further stresses the mitochondria.11
Ironically, many of the drugs most widely used to treat the growing epidemic of chronic illnesses today, such as statins (see Our mitochondria have a drug problem, below), are toxic to our mitochondria; the damage often starts with disrupting their glucose-handling mechanisms. Drugs harm the mitochondria through myriad pathways, including disrupting and swelling their membranes, blocking their function and/or directly damaging their DNA.12
When mitochondria can’t produce enough ATP—or when they produce too many free radicals, causing oxidative stress—the body begins to stumble. Over months and years, that stumbling leads to chronic illness. In a world full of chemical and food toxins, where even medicines are harmful, what can we do to protect our mitochondrial engines?
Research shows it’s the small everyday choices that can slow or even reverse the damaging mitochondrial processes. “The overarching principle is that in everything you do—how much you move, what you put in your mouth, what you put on your skin—you can ask, Does it nourish my mitochondria, or does it damage them?” says Kristen.
Under this overarching principle, Kristin puts the following five pillars of mitochondrial health.
1. Good eating habits for mitochondrial resilience
Every bite we take ultimately becomes raw material for mitochondria. Diets rich in whole, unprocessed foods—especially colorful fruits and vegetables—provide antioxidants and polyphenols that help neutralize oxidative stress.
Compounds such as quercetin (in apples and onions), resveratrol (in grapes and berries) and curcumin (in turmeric) have all been shown to support mitochondrial resilience.13 Omega-3 fatty acids from fish, flax and walnuts also enhance mitochondrial membranes, making them more efficient energy producers.14
Not surprisingly, the Mediterranean diet, which has all these ingredients, is a favorite of Kristen’s. “By calming inflammation and improving metabolic flexibility, it creates the ideal internal environment for mitochondria to thrive,” she says, citing research consistently showing it leads to better cardiovascular health, a lower incidence of diabetes and improved mitochondrial markers.15
The Mediterranean diet is “the normal diet for most of the time humans evolved,” says Columbia’s Dr Picard. That is, it’s what we ate before the modern Western diet of highly processed foods, sugar and trans fats came along to clog up the mitochondrial works, leading to rampant impaired function.
“What we know for sure, though, is that not eating too much is good for your mitochondria,” adds Picard. “Being hungry once in a while via intermittent fasting, alternate-day fasting, one meal a day or other methods is probably extremely good for our mitochondria.”
By giving cells periods of rest from constant calorie supply, mitochondria can shift into “repair mode,” cleaning up damaged components (mitophagy) and generating new ones (mitochondrial biogenesis). Fasting promotes mitochondrial biogenesis and reduces oxidative stress.16
That, he adds, may be why the ketogenic diet has been demonstrated to be the most effective therapy for seizures and why there are so many anecdotes about dramatic recovery from metabolic and mental illnesses on the medical ketogenic diet. Its low carbohydrate and high fat content mimic the effects of long-term fasting without the downside of starvation.
“By shifting the body’s primary fuel source from glucose to ketone bodies (primarily beta-hydroxybutyrate), the ketogenic state offers mitochondria a cleaner-burning, more efficient substrate,” says Kristen.
Compared to glucose metabolism, ketone oxidation produces fewer reactive oxygen species, which can be especially helpful in the brain, where mitochondrial dysfunction is linked to neurodegenerative diseases and psychotic states. Besides being a cleaner-burning fuel, ketones readily cross the blood-brain barrier and trigger neuroprotective pathways involved in autophagy (cell cleanup) and the growth of new mitochondria.17
2. Exercise for mitochondrial strength
If there’s a single activity that supercharges mitochondria, it’s exercise. Physical activity stimulates cells to make more mitochondria (mitochondrial biogenesis). That’s like installing extra power stations at the cellular level, improving both endurance and overall resilience.
Aerobic activities such as walking, running and cycling are especially effective at boosting mitochondrial number and efficiency. Resistance training, on the other hand, helps maintain muscle mitochondria, which decline naturally with age.18
Even short bursts of high-intensity activity have been shown to spark mitochondrial growth. You don’t need to run marathons to get benefits.
“Being out of breath is very healthy for our mitochondria,” says Dr Picard. “Any type of movement—walking, running, having sex—increases our breathing rate. To everything we do that requires more energy, the body responds with healthier mitochondria.”
3. Sleep for mitochondrial restoration
When you drift off at night, your mitochondria get to work repairing and restoring themselves.19 Sleep deprivation, on the other hand, interferes with this process, leading to reduced energy production and increased oxidative stress. Disrupted sleep contributes to chronic conditions like obesity, diabetes and neurodegeneration.
New research from Oxford University shows it’s mitochondria in brain cells that trigger sleep onset in sleep-deprived fruit flies, and humans may have the same mechanism.20 So, mitochondria may be at the heart of sleep disorders like insomnia too. Our mitochondria need rest as much as we do.
4. Stress relief for mitochondrial efficiency
“States of mind are deeply connected to the way energy flows in the body,” says Dr Picard. Positive psychological states, such as feeling connected to others or a sense of purpose, have positive effects on mitochondrial efficiency, and negative psychological states, such as fear or grief, elevate cortisol and inflammatory signals that can damage mitochondria.
In one study, Picard found women who reported feeling the most positive in the evening had mitochondria with 16–18 percent more energy the next morning than those who said they were in the most negative psychological state the night before.21
Over time, his research has shown, chronic stress recalibrates the mitochondria so they produce less energy. This change leads to fatigue, immune dysfunction and accelerated aging,22 like turning your hair gray.2
Practices that calm the nervous system—such as mindfulness meditation, yoga and deep breathing—have been shown to lower stress hormones and improve mitochondrial function.
5. Toxin avoidance for mitochondrial protection
Apart from the drugs discussed above, our environment is plagued with chemicals that disrupt mitochondria in myriad ways. Kristina Kristen offers some tips to minimize the environmental harm to our bio-engines.
Prioritize organic food. Pesticides like organophosphates disrupt mitochondrial enzymes.
Eliminate processed foods. These are linked to oxidative stress, inflammation and microbiome disruption—factors that impair mitochondrial function.
Avoid plastics. Take special care to avoid using plastics when heating food. BPA and phthalates leach into food and accumulate in fat tissue.
Avoid heavy metals. Metals like mercury (in vaccines and dental amalgams) and lead are toxic to the mitochondria.
Use clean personal care products. Fragrance, parabens and aluminum-based compounds are common mitochondrial disruptors.
Drink less and never smoke. Both impair mitochondrial function and increase oxidative stress.
Reduce EMF exposure. While more research is needed, some studies suggest EMFs may disrupt mitochondrial calcium signaling and function.
Fight Covid spike proteins. Recent research indicates that both the spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the spike protein produced by mRNA vaccines can significantly damage mitochondrial function. Studies show that exposure to the spike protein is linked to mitochondrial dysfunction, impacting cellular energy production.23
If you’ve had Covid or an mRNA Covid vaccine, a combination of nattokinase, bromelain and curcumin has been shown to degrade spike proteins and reverse many of their effects.
Limit apex predator fish. These species, which include tuna, swordfish and shark, accumulate high mercury levels that impair mitochondrial enzymes and damage mitochondrial DNA.
Filter indoor air. Use HEPA and VOC filters to reduce pollutants and mold spores.
Support detox pathways. Beyond reducing input, support your mitochondria’s capacity to neutralize toxins with nutritional cofactors (see Supplements for mitochondrial health, below). Infrared saunas and sweating also help eliminate fat-soluble toxins through the skin.
“Instead of seeing ourselves as molecular machines, we should think of ourselves as energetic beings,” says Dr Picard. “The idea that sickness is because of broken things or mental illness, because your brain is broken or because you’re deficient in a molecule—those are outdated perspectives.
“Once you start to see yourself energetically, you can feel how changeable your body is based on lifestyle factors, like what you eat and so on,” he adds.
Viewing the body, health and disease more energetically also leads to energy-based therapies, one of the most promising of which is light, or photobiomodulation.
“Regular exposure to natural sunlight—especially in the morning—helps regulate circadian rhythms,” says Kristen. It lowers cortisol, supports vitamin D synthesis, and enhances mitochondrial resilience by influencing melatonin and redox balance.
Red or near-infrared (low-level) light therapy harnesses specific light wavelengths, typically in the 660–850 nm range, to influence cellular behavior at the mitochondrial level. When light from this range hits a key mitochondrial enzyme called cytochrome C oxidase, it becomes more efficient at transferring electrons, directly boosting ATP production, which gives cells more currency to spend on repair and to offset oxidative stress.24
Because red light targets mitochondria, it’s used to treat an almost unbelievable menu of conditions, promoting tissue regeneration, wound healing and muscle recovery and ameliorating eye damage, skin conditions and cognitive impairment. As a noninvasive, drug-free therapy, it’s the most hopeful of frontiers in mitochondrial medicine.
Another frontier is the connection between mitochondria and the trillions of microbes living in our gut. Recent research points to shared signaling between them, such as by producing short-chain fatty acid molecules, in which gut bacteria “talk” and mitochondria “listen”—and vice versa.
This microbe-mitochondria crosstalk opens doors to new therapies via diet, probiotics and fecal transfers, which might influence the “discussion” with improvements for patients.1
The following supplements can all help support the health of your mitcochondria.1
Coenzyme Q10. An essential antioxidant that shuttles electrons during mitochondrial energy production. Supplementing improves cellular output, particularly in the heart. It’s especially important for those taking statins, which deplete this enzyme.
Suggested dosage: 100–300 mg daily
Acetyl-L-carnitine. Needed to transport essential fatty acids across the mitochondrial membrane. It can boost mitochondrial function in brain cells to improve mental clarity and recall as well as increase fat-burning during exercise.
Suggested dosage: 500–2,000 mg daily
Alpha-lipoic acid. A potent antioxidant required for metabolism, it may enhance mitochondrial function and increase insulin sensitivity.
Suggested dosage: 300–600 mg daily
Magnesium. Required to make every ATP molecule and for more than 300 enzymatic reactions in the body. Since even a mild deficiency can cause fatigue, headache and other symptoms, supplementing often alleviates muscle cramps, improves sleep and boosts energy.
Suggested dosage: 200–400 mg daily as magnesium malate, glycinate or citrate
Pyrroloquinoline quinone. A redox cofactor that increases the number of mitochondria in cells and boosts energy metabolism. Supplementing may increase focus and stamina.
Suggested dosage: 10–20 mg daily
B vitamins. A B-complex with at least 50–100 mg of B1, B2, B3 and B5, plus appropriate levels of B6, B7 (biotin), B9 (folate), and B12, supports all facets of mitochondrial metabolism. Look for methylated B9 and B12 to ensure the body can use it.
Suggested dosage: Choose a high-quality complex and follow label instructions
Creatine. Known for increasing strength in athletes and for its neuroprotective properties, creatine is stored in muscles and the brain as creatine phosphate, where it rapidly donates a phosphate, boosting energy support during high demand.
Suggested dosage: 3–5 g daily
NAD⁺ boosters. Levels of an enzyme necessary for metabolic function, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD⁺), decline with age. A nicotinamide riboside (NR, a form of vitamin B3) supplement has been shown to raise NAD⁺ in humans. Early research suggests it may have similar benefits to fasting and calorie restriction, enhancing muscle endurance.
Suggested dosage: 250–500 mg daily
Guy Tenenbaum is one cancer survivor who is convinced he would not be alive if he hadn’t learned to view the body energetically. In 2018, he was told that his prostate cancer had spread to his bones and lymph glands and was incurable. Over previous years, he’d already been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, joint pain and psoriasis, and he was overweight.
On a YouTube channel (SurviveFromCancer), he began documenting the changes he made to his diet and lifestyle. After he adopted fasting and a ketogenic diet, he undertook every other mitochondria-focused therapy he could find.
He dropped weight, reversed all his other preexisting health conditions, saw his metastasized cancer disappear and dropped his prostate-specific antigen (PSA, a cancer marker) from a remarkably high 87 ng/mL to an almost undetectable and reassuring 0.01 ng/mL.
His book with Nathalie Loth, My Battle Against Cancer: Survivor Protocol (self-published, 2023) outlines his own metabolic cancer protocol. He’s also been working with leaders in the field, including Dr Seyfried, to back up his personal experience with science, publishing papers about how the keto diet affects cancer.1
The West is drowning in a flood of chronic disease caused by mitochondrial damage. But ironically, the statin drugs taken to reduce the risk of one of them, heart disease, have been shown to damage mitochondria. They’re among the most prescribed pharmaceuticals in the world—200 million people take them globally, including one in four Americans and one in three UK residents over age 39.
One of the most common side effects of statin use is muscle weakness and pain (nicknamed SAMS, statin-associated muscle symptoms). That’s because skeletal muscles are avid energy consumers too, and statins damage the mitochondria that fuel that consumption.1
It’s a side effect that may be behind growing muscle weakness in the aging population.2 But it’s not the only side effect of statin-induced mitochondrial dysfunction.
The trade-off for the heart-protective effects of lipid-lowering statins may be another metabolic (and heart-risky) disorder, such as type 2 diabetes onset with insulin resistance or mitochondrially driven cognitive decline. “The use of statins has been associated with the onset of additional pathological conditions like diabetes and dementia as a result of interference with mitochondrial pathways by various mechanisms,” according to a 2021 study.3
One of those affected pathways involves the depletion of coenzyme Q10, a cofactor in the mitochondrial electron transport chain. Supplementing with CoQ10 has become common to counter muscle effects of statins and chronic fatigue.
Although some research has reported that supplements do not fix the problem,4 more recent trials have found that supplementing CoQ10 does increase muscle strength for those taking statins.5
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