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In my last blog, I explored different ways aging can impact our energy and mental acuity. As promised, in this blog update I’m taking a closer look the impact of aging on our mitochondria, and what we can do to keep them in good shape as we age.
As I explained previously, mitochondria supply over 90% of brain cell energy, so it’s easy to see why these little cellular organelles are so important to brain health. They need nutrients and oxygen to perform their vital functions, including providing high-energy molecules to nerve cells, and maintaining calcium balance inside our cells. If nerve cell mitochondria are damaged or cannot receive the necessary nutrients and oxygen, then all of the biological functions that involve the nervous system are impaired.
But our mitochondria can sustain damage over time, and as we enter into the later stages of our lives those damaged mitochondria can no longer provide the energy necessary to maintain memory, cognition and brain health in general. This can occur at different ages in different individuals, but in general a 90-year-old person may have lost up to one half of the mitochondrial function that they had as a young adult! This means that their brain functions can tire more easily, causing temporary confusion and memory loss. Exercise can help with this problem, because it stimulates the movement of oxygen and nutrients to the brain and ultimately to nerve cells in the brain, but exercise alone cannot make an old brain young again.
To heal this damage takes more than a brisk walk or the right food on your plate. But to understand why, you need to know a little bit more about the structure of mitochondria.
Mitochondria are separated from the other parts of our cells by a surrounding outer membrane. This membrane forms a barrier with the interior of the cell (or cytoplasm) to keep nutrients inside and separate the energy-generating system in the inner membrane from the rest of the cell. Basic research over the last approximately 50 years has found that the inner mitochondrial membranes are the critical structures in generating the high-energy molecules necessary to maintain brain function. This system must be undamaged to maintain the electrical/chemical gradient across the inner mitochondrial membrane.
But as we age, or suffer free radical damage from other sources, the inner mitochondrial membranes can become damaged. The most damage-sensitive molecules are the phospholipids that form a bilayer structure that is the matrix of the inner membrane. The damaged membrane phospholipids must be replaced continually to maintain the fluidity and structural integrity of the inner membrane and maintain its trans-membrane electrical/chemical gradient. This is why proper nutrition for our mitochondria is so important during aging and to maintain our health.
What is the solution? Provide undamaged, essential nutritional membrane phospholipids in our diets or as nutritional supplements so that as we age our mitochondrial membranes can be repaired and can maintain their proper functions. It sounds simple enough, but unfortunately those membrane phospholipids are themselves very sensitive to environmental damage, so many of the membrane phospholipids that we would obtain in our normal diets are already damaged by the time that they arrive in our brain. Most diets and nutritional supplements do not provide some of the essential membrane phospholipids as undamaged molecules, so the process of replacing damaged membrane molecules can’t occur at rates necessary to maintain brain mitochondrial function.
At NTI, we have developed a proprietary nutritional or food supplement that provides just the correct mixture of protected, essential mitochondrial membrane phospholipids to help repair the damaged to mitochondria that occurs during aging and health problems. This all-natural supplement is called NTFactor Lipids®, and it forms the basis of almost all of the NTI products. Best of all, it has been matched to the inner mitochondrial membrane composition and is protected from damage during storage and ingestion that occurs because of the harmful effects of oxidation. (Learn more here!)
I take this product daily myself, because I believe in its effectiveness in helping older folks like me to improve their brain health and general health. I don’t think that there is anything better that you can do for your brain health than eating properly, getting enough exercise, stimulating your brain, staying social, and taking daily vitamins and a mitochondrial nutritional supplement.
Prof. Emeritus Garth Nicolson, PhD, MD (H)
The Institute for Molecular Medicine
Huntington Beach, California
References:
1. Nicolson GL. Membrane Lipid Replacement: clinical studies using a natural medicine approach to restoring membrane function and improving health. International Journal of Clinical Medicine, 2016; 7: 133-143.
http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=63602
2. Nicolson GL, Rosenblatt S, Ferreira de Mattos G, Settineri R, Breeding PC, Ellithorpe RR, Ash ME. Clinical uses of Membrane Lipid Replacement supplements in restoring membrane function and reducing fatigue in chronic diseases and cancer. Discoveries, 2016; 4(1): e54.
http://www.immed.org/treatment considerations/06.11.2016.update/Clinical_Uses_MLR-NicolsonDiscoveries2016.pdf
3. Nicolson GL, Ash ME. Membrane Lipid Replacement for chronic illnesses, aging and cancer using oral glycerolphospholipid formulations with fructooligosaccharides to restore phospholipid function in cellular membranes, organelles, cells and tissues. Biochimica Biophysica Acta Biomembranes 2017; 1859: 1704-1724. doi: org/10.1016/j.bbamem.2017.04.013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbamem.2017.04.013
