The UltraMind Solution (78 page)

The energy assembly line depends on many steps to produce the little packets of energy called ATP (adenosine triphosphate) that run every single cell in your body. And every step depends on vitamins and minerals and special nutrients such as camitine, NADH, lipoic acid, and coenzyme Q10.

When you don’t get enough of these vitamins and minerals, your mitochondria have a much more difficult time producing energy, compounding the problem they face from the onslaught of ever more free radicals.

The result is that they produce less energy and all of the processes in your body slow down. Your brain cells fire more slowly, your metabolism slows, and your ability to process toxins shuts down, to name just a few. Every function in your body would eventually cease if you stopped producing enough energy to keep it functioning.

This is what aging ultimately is—the slow destruction and damage to our mitochondria that result from nutritional deficiencies, low levels of antioxidants, exposure to toxins, allergens, infections, and stress. In short, imbalances in any of the keys to UltraWellness cause problems by damaging the mitochondria.

If you don’t eat enough healthy fats, you can’t build fluid, flexible, functional mitochondrial membranes, which keep your mitochondria healthy and prevent them from dying.
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If you are deficient in the B vitamins or magnesium or other key nutrients, energy production slows down.

If the methylation and sulfation trains slow down, free radicals and oxidative stress increase because you don’t have enough glutathione to protect yourself, and homocysteine (which is a toxic molecule in high amounts) increases, which creates even more oxidative stress. The result? Energy production slows, or worse, your cells die.

If your hormones are out of balance,
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including high cortisol from too much stress,
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or your thyroid function is slow,
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your mitochondria slow way down. If you have inflammation
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from any source, including the gut, you damage mitochondria. Toxins
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of any kind do their damage, ultimately, by poisoning the mitochondria.

At the end of the day, loss of function or death of mitochondria accounts for much of what we see in most diseases—including problems with mood, behavior, attention, and memory.

Taking a journey through the scientific literature makes it clear that all these factors lead to oxidative stress and mitochondrial injury as the final common pathways of illness and disease.

Evidence links autism,
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;
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Alzheimer’s,
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Parkinson’s,
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;
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depression,
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bipolar disease,
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and brain aging
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in general to mitochondrial injury from oxidative stress, which can be triggered by poor diet, toxins, infections, allergens, hormonal imbalances, altered gut function, and stress.

This may sound far-fetched. How can this all be connected?

I will answer this question over the course of this chapter. However, trust me when I say that the research on oxidative stress and mitochondrial injury bears this out.

While most researchers work quietly in their labs sorting out all the pieces of the puzzle of human suffering, a few take a step back and ask, “What are the patterns, themes, and principles that link everything together?”

What these men and women have begun to realize is that there are a few unifying themes of disease that most scientists and doctors have come to accept. They are:

Inflammation

Oxidative stress

Mitochondrial injury

There are only so many ways the body can say “ouch” when insulted. And the final common pathway for most conditions is oxidative stress, mitochondrial damage, and the resultant loss of energy.

That is why so many “neuroprotective” strategies are under investigation and have shown promise, including lipoic acid, acetylL-carnitine, coenzyme Q10, and NADH. All help repair the damage to your mitochondria—damage from any source—and protect your “neurons.” The result is improved brain function.

Neuroprotective strategies like these can be important (and supplementation is often a critical part of healing), but even when these methods are used they are often used late in the game (when the damage is already done), and they don’t address the real core of the problem. Sure, if you have a tack stuck in your foot you can take a lot of aspirin, but the real treatment is taking out the tack. You have to work at both ends: find the cause and fix the collateral damage. If you have been poisoned by mercury, you must get rid of the mercury and support and protect your mitochondria with nutrients and antioxidants.

Similarly, you can give supplements and medications that boost mitochondrial function, but the treatment is removing the substances that lead to damage in the first place.

Since your mitochondria are so sensitive and can be damaged so easily, oxidative stress can come from anywhere—mercury poisoning, nutritional deficiency, hormonal imbalance, or inflammation.

The key is finding the cause and eliminating it. If you are mercury toxic, neuroprotective strategies will take you only so far. The treatment is to get rid of the mercury. The same is true for the other imbalances that cause mitochondrial distress.

Let’s look at some of the key factors that lead to oxidative stress and the brain problems it brings. This will give you the power to treat the problem, not the symptoms. You can remove the “tack” that is making you crazy, depressed, and forgetful.

Is oxidative stress leading to your loss of energy? Take the following quiz to find out.

In the box on the right, place a check for each positive answer. Then find out how severe your problem is using the scoring key below.

OXIDATIVE STRESS QUIZ *
I am fatigued on a regular basis.
I get less than 7 or 8 hours sleep a night.
I don’t exercise regularly or I exercise more than 15 hours a week.
I am sensitive to perfume, smoke, or other chemicals or fumes.
I regularly experience deep muscle or joint pain.
I am exposed to a significant level of environmental toxins (pollutants, chemicals, etc.) at home or at work.
I smoke cigarettes or cigars (or anything else).
I am regularly exposed to secondhand smoke.
I drink more than three alcoholic beverages a week.
I don’t use sunblock, or I like to bake in the sun or go to tanning booths.
I take prescription, over-the-counter, and/or recreational drugs.
I would rate my life as very stressful.
I eat fried foods, margarine, or a lot of animal fat (meat, cheese, etc.).