Power Up Your Mitochondria: A Look at Mitochondrial Health (Performance & Longevity Series)

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Transcript: Power Up Your Mitochondria: A Look at Mitochondrial Health (Performance & Longevity Series)

Season 12, Episode 15  | March 5, 2026

Jamie Martin

We’re back with another episode of Life Time Talks. I’m Jamie Martin, and I’m here with my colleague, Jim LaValle, for our series on performance and longevity with MIORA. Jim is a clinical pharmacist, the co-chair of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, the chair of the International Peptide Society, and most recently, the chief science officer for Life Time Hey, Jim, how are you?

 

Jim LaValle

Doing good. I’m kind of starting to feel like a co-host or something.

 

Jamie Martin

Oh my gosh, should we launch our own podcast? That’s really just you and I. No, I’ll have to talk to David about that.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, right, right.

 

Jamie Martin

This episode, I’m excited to talk to you because we’ve mentioned in episodes since we’ve been doing this, we’ve mentioned mitochondrial health a lot. And in this episode, we’re really going to focus on what that means and kind of set the foundation so people, whenever they hear that term, they know what we’re talking about. Because it’s kind of a relatively, not new concept, you’ve been talking about this forever, but it seems like it’s making its way into the mainstream more right now. And there’s been lots of evolution on it.

 

Jim LaValle

Absolutely. Imean, it’s interesting. I was at a big event and one of the keynote speakers and we were talking about health in America. And he ended up at the end of the crescendo of everything was, you know, yes, we have to control blood sugar. Yes, we have to do this. We have to do this.

 

But he ended up at mitochondrial health. And this wasn’t a bunch of scientists in the room. This was a bunch of advocates for the natural products industry, right? And so mitochondrial health and metabolic health are the two big terms that are out there and they end up being almost interchangeable because your metabolism can’t be healthy if the powerhouses of your cell, known as the mitochondria, are not optimized and not functioning. mitochondria are literally the energy source in your cell. And your body can make lots of mitochondria within the cell. Or, over time, you can lose mitochondrial capacity so you don’t renew as many mitochondria.

 

Or they, they lose their ability to make energy. And so when you think about the mitochondria, it’s just that cellular target. Now that everybody’s, quote, biohacking, right? You know, there’s this thought of, we’ve got to make the mitochondria go better. So you have everybody rushing towards every supplement and peptide that’s mitochondria. But I think it takes a little bit more of a nuance to understand, first of all, well, what makes it go wrong?

 

Secondly, there’s some basic things you need to do in order to make sure mitochondrial health is taking place. And then the third is, well, when do you look at those advanced therapies like, you know, peptides or other nutrients that are specific to the mitochondria? And it, you know, and it turns out that, you know, if you think of your mitochondria, it goes through a process. So it’s making energy and it’s handing off electrons. It’s passing them down this chain and making energy. So you should make over 30 packets of ATP if your mitochondria are working well.

 

Jamie Martin

What do you mean by packets? Like over 30 packets.

 

Jim LaValle

An energy molecule. ATP, the energy packet for your, you know, it’s like giving you another double-way battery that’s renewed, right?

 

And so the problem is when people get into metabolic inflammation, and in particular, with one big example is insulin resistance and people with diabetes. They only make two packets of energy.

 

Jamie Martin

So that’s a significant reduction.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, you’re not making much energy. Yeah. And the problem is, is that you’re also making more waste inside the cell. So instead of making a bunch of energy and very clean fuel, like a fuel efficient hybrid car, or, you know, instead you’re driving around a five mile per gallon car and, you’re making a lot of waste or potentially pollution. And that pollution starts to damage your cells.

 

And so why is it important to think about mitochondrial health? Because at the cellular level, that is going to really dictate how you’re aging and how effective all the, you whether you want to call it biohacking or integrative or regenerative care, is it really working if you’re not restoring mitochondrial function. And now you can measure it before the only way to measure it was to do a punch biopsy in your muscle. I’m not real anxious to go get a punch biopsy. I don’t know why it just sounds like I think I’ll pass. But now through actually University of California San Diego, they had done research on this and they can do a simple finger stick that will show basically 17 different characteristics of your mitochondrial function and health and where you are at. And then, and it’s validated to punch biopsy. So what they did was they looked and said, well, how accurate is this?

 

Jamie Martin

Right, if this is the most accurate that we know of, let’s see if this finger prick really measures up.

 

Jim LaValle

Does it measure up? And it turns out that it measures up.

 

Jamie Martin

That’s promising.

 

Jim LaValle

It’s really good news because what it does is it helps us to guide when you’re doing certain you know programs or therapies well am I really restoring cellular health or not?

 

Jamie Martin

I just think it’s so interesting to hear you say this because you do hear, I mean, and this is the thing, this is one of the things with social media is you hear of all these things that people are doing for their health and wellness. And it’s like, you could be doing all those things and you might on the surface look really healthy, but when it comes down to this, and like a lot of people you’re finding are not actually very mitochondrial, don’t have good mitochondrial health, if that’s the way to describe it.

 

Jim LaValle

Yes, I’ve looked at a fair amount of these and some of the biggest I’d say biohackers in communities that have been tested and I know even for my folks that I’ve done this test with they’re doing all this stuff. But they’re still aging at an accelerated rate because they really haven’t done step one.

 

So and you brought up something so appropriate. There is a sequence to getting well. I always try to use the analogy, say you go buy an old house and you love old houses, you love to renovate old houses, and the house has got cracks in the foundation, it needs new windows, it needs a new roof, and there’s cracks in the walls. Well, it doesn’t do much good to replace the windows until you correct the foundation, your cells are the same way. So it turns out when mitochondria get damaged or the process is that there’s not enough redox or antioxidant potential within your cell, you leak the electrons out of the mitochondria. So instead of them being carried all the way through to make those big packets of energy, they’re escaping. And with that escape comes damaged to your tissues. Now, there is something called the Warburg effect. Warburg effect, Nobel Prize, how cancer cells get their energy. All right? And it turns out — and I actually wrote a chapter in a book called Diabetes and Cancer Molecular Links and Epidemiologic Evidence. I know very exciting.

 

Jamie Martin

That’s a mouthful.

 

Jim LaValle

You’re probably just waiting to just order that book right now. It’s one of the best books you can get for sleep. You open it up, you know, read one paragraph and you’re down.

 

Jamie Martin

My eyes are closed. [LAUGHTER]

 

Jim LaValle

I’m maxed out. But the point being is that your mito — like mitochondrial health is a journey just like the rest of your health is a journey. So as you become insulin resistant and now your body is now carrying glucose into the cell inefficiently, the mitochondria are making energy inefficiently. You make a lot more lactic acid. And so if you think of the journey, if you’re making a lot of lactic acid and you have DOMS, know, have that delayed muscle soreness, onset soreness from exercise, it might be that your mitochondrial capacity is down and it’s an early sign that there’s a problem.

 

Now let’s take it all the way out to the end. Like what happens if we go to all the way down the funnel with, you know, poor mitochondrial function? Well, it turns out that nearly all chronic diseases that are non-communicable, I don’t mean a virus or something like that, but all non-communicable diseases have a loss of mitochondrial function.

 

So that’s directly tied to the efficiency of us as we’re aging. And so there’s some big things that happen that we should be controlling around the mitochondria. The first thing is, well, how would you repair a mitochondria? It’s this little thing in your cell. How are going to repair that?

 

Jamie Martin

How do we even start?

 

Jim LaValle

Well, if you’re leaking, so you do your mitochondrial test and it turns out that it shows there’s a lot of free radical damage going on, that the energy production is off, that you don’t, your mitochondria are working too hard to produce the energy that you need, right? So these are key things that get measured in the test. So the first thing is that you need phospholipids. So we hear of terms like phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylserine.

 

Well, so the mitochondria has two membranes, an inner membrane and an outer membrane. The inner membrane needs phosphatidyl acetal and phosphatidylethanolamine. And those are phospholipids that you can get. You could get them in your diet if you’re eating foods that are rich in phospholipids. We mentioned this in another episode, things like egg yolks, really good for that. But you may need to take phospholipids because a lot of our food sources just aren’t containing high phospholipid foods anymore. It’s not in our culture. So that prepares the inner membrane and then the phosphatidyl choline helps with the outer membrane, phosphatidylserine too for a certain extent. So you need, before you start thinking about, I’m going to do NAD plus injections, right? Which NAD is as hot as it gets right now, right? Everybody’s talking about NAD. Why is NAD important? Because it drives mitochondrial function in your cell. And it keeps you actually generating energy the way you’re supposed to. So people are right to want to build their NAD levels.

 

But it would make sense that, let’s repair those mitochondria a little bit. Let’s include taking phospholipids. And then there’s compounds like coenzyme Q10, which help you carry through the electron transport chain. A lot of medications deplete CoQ10. So, you know, the kind of the glowing example, of course, are statin medications that some 20% of people will feel myopathies. Their muscles will get sore because they’re on the medication, they’re depleting CoQ10. And then there’s another percentage where you get what’s called rhabdomyolysis, right? They get really significant muscle breakdown. So if you’re on medications, and it’s not just statin medications, there are several categories of medications that lower Coenzyme Q10. You wanna take Coenzyme Q10 because you wanna keep the mitochondria being able to do what they’re supposed to do.

 

Jamie Martin

To transport those electrons where they need to go.

 

Jim LaValle

That’s right. And then, you the other thing that we’ve heard a lot about now are sirtuins, right? Everybody’s talking about SIRT1 sirtuins and should I take green tea? Should I take Fisetin? What should I take to help my sirtuins? Because sirtuins signal a compound, a molecule in your body. And I don’t want to get too technical, but we’re going down the path. That’s part of my job. It’s PGC-1alpha. And that is what tells the mitochondria to basically renew mitochondrial biogenesis to make new mitochondria so that your body can continue to make energy. What holds that back?

 

Jamie Martin

Right, like what is causing like the reduction in that?

 

Jim LaValle

That’s the key. Lack of exercise. So when you exercise, you actually help with renewal of your mitochondria because it up regulates making PGC-1alpha. So exercise is great. But once again, try to learn how to not over train, right? It’s the balance. So that’s important. The other thing that happens.

 

So in addition to when you become insulin resistant, and you get less mitochondrial efficiency, more lactic acids build up inside your cell. You pump that lactic acid out into your tissues. So what are you gonna do when you have more lactic acid in your tissues? How are you gonna feel?

 

Jamie Martin

You’re gonna feel sluggish, you’re not gonna feel like moving. You’re gonna be sore, you’re gonna kinda wait it out.

 

Jim LaValle

That’s exactly right. But the other piece to it is, is that as people get under stress and so their cortisol levels are going higher because of chronic stress and they do what’s called flattening of the cortisol curve. Your body thinks you’re chasing a white tiger all day basically. When that happens, you start to lose thyroid hormone production. So you have two thyroid hormones. One is T4 and the other is T3. I know we’ve got a thyroid episode, but I just want to review this because it’s critical to mitochondrial health. So T4 gets converted to T3. When you’re under a lot of stress, you don’t make as much T3 because your body’s trying to control your heart rate.

 

Thyroid hormone when you have low thyroid hormone levels you will reduce mitochondrial content like how many mitochondria are in your cell right by as much as 40%. And what’s one of the big things that people complain of when they have low thyroid?

 

Jamie Martin

Low energy.

 

Jim LaValle

Low energy, right. Yeah, so what you know what I was hoping when we talk about mitochondria is making it real. It’s not just this little microscopic thing that’s in the cell. It’s being influenced by the hormones that your lifestyle is either promoting a healthy response and maintaining your glucose in a proper position, maintaining your stress hormones, having decent thyroid function. Because what happens is, is when T3 is low, in addition to low mitochondrial output, has to, it has to enter the cell.

 

And when it enters the cell, it triggers, because we’ve got a lot of people with biohackers now, they like hearing these words, right? So I’m going to use more words. The carnitine palmitoyltransferase. My gosh, that’s a big one.

 

Jamie Martin

Carnitine palmitoyltransferase.

 

Jim LaValle

So what is that doing? That’s helping you to burn fat.

 

Jamie Martin

It is truly all intertwined.

 

Jim LaValle

That’s what I was trying to get to. So I know it took a little while to build the story. What you have to understand is that when you’re feeling tired and you’ve gained weight and you’re sore too long, and even from the standpoint of people, it’s been published very extensively now, people that had COVID and are COVID long haulers have low mitochondrial content.

 

Jamie Martin

It makes sense, right? Because of the damage that’s happened.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, and let’s talk about how that happened. Why do you want to keep your NAD levels up? So one of the important things that you can do, you could do an NAD, you know, MIORA at Life Time. The providers could give you an NAD injection, subcutaneous, nice and easy. You do it about every other day, every third day. And you build up your mitochondrial capacity by doing that. And people will report, hey, my energy is better.

 

The other way is there’s a compound called nicotinamide riboside. So N R. So you’ve heard people talking about NMN, NR. mean, we, these are terms that are kind of all over the, over the popular, you know, social media, right? Well, it turns out that nicotinamide riboside gets absorbed in the cell and then is turned into NMN that then gets turned into NAD. But the difference is when you take NMN, it still has to be turned into NR.

 

Jamie Martin

Okay, so it almost is better to start with the NR.

 

Jim LaValle

It is better. Start with the NR. And why that’s so — I know this is heavy.

 

Jamie Martin

But it’s super interesting because it really is painting the picture of the interconnectedness and how mitochondrial health affects every aspect of our health.

 

Jim LaValle

No, there’s not a single function in your body that doesn’t rely on this. And this is that funnel of aging. We’re all interested in this topic of longevity and health span. One of the biggest things you can do is start to understand, in my organized approach to my health, am I first repairing that foundational issues that I have?

 

My glucose is too high. Maybe you’re 30 pounds overweight. No matter what you’ve done, you haven’t been able to get it off. That’s the value of GLP-1s. It helps to restore some of the connectedness of your metabolism so that you’re burning glucose more effectively again. And then you’re, it’s, well, am I managing my stress? Is my cortisol high? Do I feel over-committed? Am I anxious and nervous? Work on that.

 

Jamie Martin

So you have to do that on your own, right? But in conjunction with these other things.

 

Jim LaValle

Yes, now that you work on, you know, like deep breathing, mindfulness, right? Yoga. There’s a lot of ways. mean, I was big on Tai Chi personally. That was my big way to kind of tame the tiger in me. OK, and then it’s OK. Now we’ve got that base. Is there any environmental issues that could be damaging the mitochondria? Right? Because pollutants, right? We know we’re in a modern world where, you know, people it’s real. You know, up to 60% of Americans have elevated levels of you things like toxic metals and pesticides, right? So there’s the detoxification pathway Yeah, and then it’s quelling the inflammation that occurs from the gut and so mitochondrial health really becomes dependent on you establishing a lifestyle not out of the paranoia or the you know the the stress driven, my God, I didn’t get everything done and I had to get done today. But really putting together a way of moving through each day where you’re looking at how do I rebuild and then next, how do I enhance? And in mitochondrial health is at the middle of that because there are, a peptide that just got approved actually about three weeks ago is called SS-31. SS-31 is a peptide.

 

I know we’ve got episodes on peptides and explain those. What SS-31 does is it helps repair the mitochondrial linings so that the mitochondria can restore their health and start to make energy the way they’re supposed to again.

 

Jamie Martin

It’s repairing, it’s kind of similar like when you think about leaky gut, like you want to restore that integrity of that layer, right? And that sounds similar here. It’s repairing that lining so that the electrons don’t leak out and they can then get to where they need to be.

 

Jim LaValle

That’s exactly right. And the more that your body’s under oxidative stress, the rate of rusting in your body. So if you’re not eating a diet rich in colorful vegetables and fruit, right? You’re not making sure that you’re managing your stress. And probably one of the biggest nutrients that relates to mitochondrial efficiency, and we take it for a very specific reason. But a lot of times people don’t know why. Magnesium. Right? We tell people to take magnesium when they’re exercising. One, their muscles will fire better, right? They get more performance. But the other one is, you’re sore less.

 

Jamie Martin

Yeah, it helps with that recovery.

 

Jim LaValle

It helps to get rid of the lactic acid. So why is that so important? Magnetism is important in driving that ATP to be manufactured and made. And so I think a lot of times when people start to understand why am I taking something, I think it helps to understand that literally many of the nutrients that you learn about at Life Time or if you’re going to MIORA at Life Time, a lot of these nutrients are there for very specific reasons to help you get back on that journey. Literally from the cell tissue to the organ to the whole body.

 

Jamie Martin

So it’s starting, it seems like it’s starting, like this teeny tiny place, right, in the cellular level, but it has influences on like all of the systems, right, the interconnectedness of all of them.

 

Jim LaValle

That’s right. It’s that story of, right, how does a thousand mile journey start? With a single step, right. And that’s the thing that I think a lot of people don’t appreciate when they hear mitochondria. It’s like, wow. But the reality is it’s critical in our aging process to maintain it because what happens is when you have low mitochondria output, you don’t have enough NAD in your body. When that NAD to NADH ratio, because that’s how it is, it gets small and that’s what happens when people get sick. That triggers your immune system to release cytokines. And everybody knows cytokines nowadays and they’re not making anti-inflammatory cytokines. They’re making pro-inflammatory cytokines that are damaging tissues.

 

Jamie Martin

They’re creating additional damage even though your body’s releasing them.

 

Jim LaValle

Exactly. And it’s doing it for a good reason. It’s trying to fight a bug. Right. But the problem is it becomes uncontrolled if you don’t have a good pool of NAD. And that’s why you want to restore that pore. And once again, realize as you age, those pools go down. You don’t take vitamin B3 niacin as you get older. And when I say older, I, that’s really not that old. It’s when you’re in your 30s. But as you start to get into your 30s and 40s, you don’t take niacin in as easily. And so vitamin B3 can’t be utilized to make that energy the way it used to. And that’s why compounds like NR, nicotinamide riboside, or compounds like NAD are finding such usefulness because we’re trying to be more and more productive.

 

Jamie Martin

Right. And stay productive for longer.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, exactly. And I can’t emphasize enough, virtually every chronic disease is related to mitochondrial dysfunction in some way or another, either directly causing it or it’s a secondary player because of that illness. And I think that’s important. Well, you know, the best offense is a great defense. Let’s, let’s create a defensive strategy in our body. Let’s keep ourselves healthy.

 

Jamie Martin

Yep, it makes total sense and it goes back to, again, how do we, again, take care of that foundational level, which, again, so often we think about these things are kind of a layer up from there, but really this is the latest science research kind of saying, no, if we get down to this level, can have a huge influence on our health and wellbeing for the long term.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, absolutely. I I’ve had people that have taken NAD injections, for example, and they, I got a headache, got heart palpitations. Well, yeah, because you’re putting premium gas into a vehicle that can’t burn it.

 

Jamie Martin

Right, it’s not, does that mean it’s not ready?

 

Jim LaValle

It’s not ready. No, that’s it. It’s doing the repair getting the inflammation signaling down getting the phospholipids in built, built rebuilding getting the cortisol and the thyroid and the glucose working together instead of fighting each other. Those things are foundational. And that’s why you know metabolic code when you know, we developed that it was to understand that without foundational corrections course corrections in your chemistry, how are your kidneys filtering. What’s the pH of your urine? A low urine pH means you’re under heightened oxidative stress. How do you correct a low urine pH? Eating more vegetables, taking magnesium, right? Taking a green drink.

 

Jamie Martin

So these are things we can do something about in our day-to-day life, which that feels empowering. And I think that’s the whole goal of this. Yes, there’s a lot of things that you could take and do, but there’s also things in our day-to-day lives that we can be doing to support our mitochondrial health from the ground up.

 

Jim LaValle

Absolutely. And probably just, just the last piece to this is there’s this process of autophagy and autophagy is cleaning up your cells at the end of their work day, basically. And if you don’t give your body a break from eating and you don’t exercise, you don’t clear those waste products. And it’s very clear sleep opens up the glymphatic channel. So you have what’s called glial lymph that are in your brain that’s getting rid of the waste products of brain metabolism and sleep is what clears that.

 

Jamie Martin

Yep, that’s when it’s happening, right?

 

Jim LaValle

Exactly, that’s when it’s supposed to happen. And then the other one of course is exercise helps the glial lymphatic system. And that’s why, you know, it’s interesting. We can always say, what do you need to do? Like everybody’s heard it, you know, less stress, eat better, sleep. It turns out that that’s really real. But until you start to understand why it’s important that it’s affecting you at the cellular level. Maybe it kind of goes over your head a little bit. Like, you yeah, I’ve heard that a thousand times. And that’s what I think is beautiful about our, the opportunity to talk with you is if we can explain these things where people get, this is why I’m doing this. I think that’s the important part of learning, right?

 

Jamie Martin

What I love about this so much, and it takes me back to the early days of being on the team at Experience Life with Life Time, with the magazine team, is I’ll never forget our founding editor always talked about what we’re trying to do is empower people to better understand their bodies. When we understand our bodies, we feel then empowered to take a step towards taking care of it. Like whatever that step may be, and it’s one small step, but like we really do when we understand what is happening, it, there’s like this level of, well, there’s the knowledge, but then it’s like, okay, and what can I do about it? And I think that’s what we also try to serve people with too, with all the content we’re creating and this kind of information, because it’s like, now what?

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah. And I know over the years, sometimes just giving one — magnesium, giving magnesium back to people who I’ve had leg cramps for years. I’ve had restless legs for years. My muscles get too sore after working out and they do one thing and they feel it. Change the way their body’s behaving. That gets them in that flywheel of experience to say, well, what’s the next thing I can do?

 

Jamie Martin

Right, those habits start to stack, which we talk a lot about it just from behavior change, right? Like we start to see change, we start to feel better. Now what? Again, it kind of keeps going and we can build towards that ideally kind of optimal health if that’s what we’re driving toward.

 

Jim LaValle

Right, exactly.

 

Jamie Martin

We covered a lot of ground in here, but I really love like getting back to just, you know, what are mitochondria at their function? How do they affect all aspects of our health? Anything we missed or any final note or takeaway you want to leave listeners with.

 

Jim LaValle

Yes, there’s one final note. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can start to repair and create mitochondrial biogenesis and enjoy energy and vitality at any stage in life.

 

Jamie Martin

So no matter where you are.

 

Jim LaValle

It’s work, but it’s worth it.

 

Jamie Martin

Yep, I love that. All right, Jim, we have lots of information on this topic and more at miora.lifetime.life. You can also find content articles podcasts at experiencelife.com and in the Life Time app. I think that’s it for this one. Thank you.

 

Jim LaValle

It was a good one.

 

Jamie Martin

Thanks, Jim.