How Mitochondrial Health Affects Conception and Pregnancy
What are these mitochondria I speak of? Why do they matter?…
⚡️Mitochondria are the “batteries” of our cells where our energy (ATP) is made.
Mitochondria are like the dimmer on a light switch and as your mitochondrial damage increases, the dimmer slowly moves lower and lower until the light turns off. Without proper energy production your body will start to function at lower and lower levels until it has reached the point of symptom manifestation after your body has functioned at such a low level for long enough.
⚡️Mitochondria are most highly concentrated in the muscle tissue, heart, brain, oocytes and liver.
Without optimal function, your energy production suffers. For example, if your brain mitochondria aren’t fully charged, do you think your brain will be able to delegate all of the tasks it needs to to the rest of the body? This manifests as brain fog, fatigue, memory loss, or depression as each neural synapse requires extracellular ATP (eATP) to complete it’s signaling between neurons. If you don’t have enough energy for this to happen due to your mitochondria being poorly functioning, you will have the symptom manifestation stated previously.
⚡️Mitochondria are easily damaged and therefor need to be acknowledged and optimized before trying to conceive for the best outcomes for both mama and baby, especially since mamas mitochondria are passed on maternally only. This means that your babies mitochondrial health depends on mamas mitochondrial health to have the best start at life.
What’s damaging our mitochondria? That’s an excellent question!
Cellular processes, such as the act of making ATP intracellularly, generates free radicals that can damage the cells further if the entire process isn’t optimized. On top of our cells just doing their job of creating energy, these other things can deplete mitochondrial “charge”:
Mold/Mycotoxins
Heavy metals
Herbicides, pesticidas and fungicides
Parasitic, bacterial, and viral infections
Medications
Radiation/EMF exposure
Stress (physical, mental/emotional)
Addressing and eliminating the external sources of mitochondrial damage is the first step towards better mitochondrial health. Our mitochondria are super delicate and very susceptible to damage. To run most efficiently, our bodies need to be optimized right down to the cellular level. This means removing the damaging toxicities from our cells in order to begin healing and regenerating healthy cells with restored mitochondria.
How do these toxins damage our mitochondria?
Stress- Stress can be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. The hormone cascade that happens when we are exposed to stress, internally or external stress, causes our bodies to release chemicals that damage our cells if left in fight or flight for too long. Our lifestyles and exposures to outside stressors are more damaging than ever. Learning to combat these stressors is one of the key pieces in getting and staying healthy!
Medications- Medications have now emerged as a major cause of mitochondrial damage, which may explain many adverse effects. All classes of psychotropic drugs have been documented to damage mitochondria, as have statin drugs, analgesics like acetaminophen, and many others.
Heavy Metals- Heavy metals can cross the mitochondrial membrane and interrupt the Kreb’s Cycle and block the conversion of food to fuel.
Mold + Mycotoxins- Mold mycotoxins can induce oxidative stress and overwhelm our mitochondria by suppressing their function. This oxidative stress leads to a build up of ROS inside of the cell causing an inflammatory response. This can eventually lead to our bodies producing antibodies to the mycotoxins and attacking our own organelles.
Viruses + Retroviruses- Viruses affect mitochondrial functions, and impact mitochondrial metabolism and innate immune signaling. Viruses can enter the cell and disrupt our DNA and RNA coding, which affects all aspects of cellular health. Damage to the cells from the viral replication can lead to buildup of toxic compounds and damage mitochondrial DNA.
Radiation- Exposure to radiation damages the mitochondrial DNA and causes mitochondrial dysfunction leading to increased levels of mitochondrial ROS production which perpetuates oxidative damage. EMFs from cellphones, laptops, wifi, etc., cause disruption in the mitochondrial electron transport chain and increased ROS damage.
Pesticides, Herbicides + Fungicides- These chemicals have the capacity to disrupt almost every avenue of mitochondrial function, depending on which chemical we’re referring to. Glyphosate (RoundUp), specifically, have been proven to down regulate 291 enzymes in the body. Without these enzymatic reactions occurring as they should, our bodies are unable to perform all of the functions necessary to make energy and detoxify, among many other things. Additionally, glyphosate disrupts the electron transport chain and can integrate into our joints, weakening our collagen and increasing our risk for osteoarthritis.
How can we optimize our mitochondria?
Mitochondrial health is vital to all physiological processes. The function of our mitochondria can either make us feel like we’re riding around on a horse and buggy or, if healthy, like we’re speeding around in a Mustang. To promote optimal mitochondrial function I like to:
Reduce/eliminate incoming toxicities- This step is crucial in getting well. If you are constantly filling your toxin bucket, you’ll never be able to address the mitochondria because there will always be toxins bombarding them. When working together we address all of the possible sources of incoming toxins and make a plan to decrease these to the best of our ability.
Increase cellular energy- When mitochondria are damaged, they are unable to produce sufficient energy to perform all of their cellular processes. We address this by beginning to increase cellular energy through the use of targeted supplementation, lifestyle modifications and, most importantly, eliminating incoming toxins that interfere with healthy mitochondrial function (see previous post for more info).
Specifically target and remove toxicities- Once we have helped the cells regain some of the lost energy production potential they had lost to the toxic burden they were experiencing we can start systematically removing toxins and pathogens that damage mitochondria. Be careful not to push this too soon or too hard because without enough cellular energy, your body will not be able to successfully sustain this process and can backslide into worse health if you aren’t intentional and gentle with this process.
Restore deficiencies caused by long term toxic burden- Once we have completed all of the steps above, we can restore the deficiencies lost to long-term toxin overload. This is specific to the individual and we work together to figure out where these deficiencies lie. We are then able to maintain the health of our mitochondria because we address the constant slew of incoming toxins daily and do deeper cleansing multiple times per year.
If you live on planet Earth, you know that toxins are unavoidable. We breathe, drink, eat, and apply toxic chemicals all day, every day. If you’re breathing, there is a 100% chance there is something that is considered a toxin in your air. To combat this constant poisoning it is crucial that we optimize our mitochondrial health so that our bodies are able to rid themselves of the incoming toxins.