Mitochondria dysfunction – extreme fatigue, cancer and overall health

Discover with Dr. Foster, of Post Chemo Nutrition, a review journal on how your Mitochondria dysfunction may play a major role in FATIGUE, CANCER, DIABETES, FIBROMYALGIA, SCHIZOPHRENIA, BIPOLAR DISEASE, REPRODUCTIVE ISSUES, CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE, NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES and overall HUMAN HEALTH according to a medical review from the BBA clinical 1 (2014) 12-23 titles “Association of mitochondrial dysfunction and fatigue: A review of the literature”.

TRANSCRIPT:

Have you been through radiation or chemotherapy and are you suffering from extreme fatigue? Have you just got complete exhaustion? Are you just tired all the time? If so, then please pay attention. We’re going to go over a study here from the title, “The Association of Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Fatigue,” and it’s a review of different literatures from people that have fatigue and the relating mitochondrial dysfunction to that fatigue.

So this is in the BBA clinical journal. BBA clinical journal is a journal, it’s a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of biochemistry and biophysics. So that’s what we’re going to be going over today, is this journal. Now why am I going over this? Because on our website, Post Chemo Nutrition, I have two products right now, one called Cell Revive and the other call Bindatox. Bindatox is just as it sounds. It’s a detoxing supplement that’s designed to bind and pull toxins out, not just move them around, like most products out there. Cell Revive is a product that is designed mostly for inflammation, helping with inflammation and mitochondrial function and repairing cells.

So why do we do that is because most people that have been through chemotherapy and radiation therapy, it’s very common to suffer from chronic fatigue, low energy. So we have in our website, if you go into education and research, there are two products. We’re going to go on the research of cell revive, and as you’re going to see, I have probably over a hundred different research articles on the ingredients. So I made this product based off of research I have done over the years.

Speaking of which, I am Dr. Dylan Foster. Sorry I didn’t introduce myself, if you don’t know me. I’m a chiropractic physician from my formal initial training, and then I got into getting certified into functional medicine, which is focused on addressing the cause of the problem versus treating the symptom. So that’s my next level, and then I got into being certified into nutritional oncology to help counsel people that have been through oncology, who are dealing with cancer.

So through all that training, I just basically started finding all these nutrients to help people with their health issues. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to scroll down and we’re going to keep scrolling, keep scrolling, keep scrolling, keep scrolling. We want to get to Cell Revive. Lot of ingredients in here. Sorry, Mito Cell. Here we go. So here is Mito Cell. The first journal study is the one we’re going to talk about today. So if you want to go back to it and look at it more thoroughly, because I’m going to cover it all today, because it’ll take us a few hours, I’m just going to go over some of the highlighted information, but you can go to my website, postchemonutrition.com, and then education, research, Cell Revive. Okay?

So the study here, we’re going back here. So here is the mitochondrial dysfunction and fatigue. So what I did was I actually just downloaded the PDF so I could highlight some of the highlights, if you will. So this study was done in 2014, so it’s been a few years it’s been out. I have, as you saw on a research page, there’s many more studies of nutrients related to mitochondrial dysfunction and fatigue, and other aspects of mitochondria is how it plays a role in those of you that have been through chemotherapy or radiation therapy and cancer.

So fatigue, let’s discuss the definition of fatigue, because it’s pretty important. So fatigue is often described by patients as a lack of energy, mental or physical tiredness, diminished endurance, and prolonged recovery after physical activity. So in other words, if you do new stuff that shouldn’t be too hard, it just takes you a long time to bounce back, that would be considered fatigue as well. The most important thing is right here. “Fatigue is a hallmark symptom of mitochondrial disease.” The hallmark symptom of mitochondrial disease, and that’s what we’re talking about today, because the mitochondria to me are one of the more important things that you need to repair and reestablish if you’re dealing with any health ailment or issue. So we’re going to discuss that health-related today.

A couple of the topics that is being discussed in the study, it’s actually an abstract review of literature, so it’s not an actual study. They’re just reviewing … While I isolated 1200 articles, 1,220, and then they fine tuned it down to 25 studies, so that’s what this is broken down into, and in those studies, they found carnitine to be one of the most investigated mitochondrial functional markers. So carnitine is extremely important, and of course, carnitine is in our Cell Revive product. It also talks about genetics being one of the second most studied parameters for dealing with mitochondrial dysfunction. So genetics do play a role, and I’ll talk a little bit more about that here in a minute.

Coenzyme Q10 was the most commonly investigated mitochondrial enzyme. So of course, CoQ10 is in our Cell Revive product, but low levels of coenzyme Q10 has been found to be consistently associated with fatigue. So this is important, and the reason I want to present the study is because in the health world, I don’t know what it is, but oncologists, I love them and they’re very intelligent people, but they’re put on this platform that they know everything. I know a lot of patients that believe their oncologist knows everything, and if he doesn’t know it and you do, you’re the wrong person, you’re the wrong guy, you don’t know what you’re talking about, because my oncologist would have told me, and I hear this time and time again, and what I’m going to talk about in our next webinar is going to be on oncology, oncologists and their training on nutrition. They really don’t have it. Very few do. It’s pretty rare for them to have training in oncology and in nutrition. Somebody is moving the door back there, they’re distracting me.

So what I mean by this is sometimes we have to look at our own information, look outside the box, definitely rely on your oncologists for a lot of education and knowledge, but also be aware that if they don’t have training in health and nutrition specifically, then take what they say for what it’s worth. If they don’t have that training, how well can you really trust them on health and nutrition? What training and knowledge do they really have? They spend a lot of time learning about pharmaceuticals and medications and surgeries and cancer in the pathways and how one affects the other. They don’t really have time to get into the nutritional aspect for the most part, so you really have to learn and lean into somebody that gets into nutrition that’s been trained in it and certified in it like myself.

So this is actually a topic I’m going to talk about next time from an editorial in a journal that basically talks about nutrition in patients with cancer. A new era for medical oncologists? This is a question mark, because most oncologists aren’t getting trained with nutrition, so we’ll talk about that later.

So today we’re going to talk about nutrition and how it relates, because it does play a role, I have hundreds of research studies that talk about it, including playing a role in your health and how you’re doing with what you’ve been through. So let’s scroll down here. Mitochondria are increasingly recognized as major contributors to human health and disease. Human health and disease. This is a very, very important highlight. That’s your mitochondria. I get so many people that tell me the mitochondria don’t play that much of a role. They just play a role with ATP or energy, the power of the cells, but a lot of people understand, energy makes everything move, everything happen. If you don’t have fuel in your car, you’re not going to move anywhere, but if you don’t have an engine, so we’ll think of the ATP as the fuel, and the mitochondria as the engine. If you don’t have the engine, you ain’t going anywhere.

So ATP powers many of the cells in our body and activities, and it also produces energy, right? Some of the productions of mitochondrial function have been found to help with reactive oxygen species, which is referred to as ROS, something that has been found to be dramatically affected if you’ve been through chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Effects with different processes in the body and how cells repair and function, different amino acids and how they play a role in your metabolism and function and co factors. Apoptosis, which is the destruction of bad cells where they self-destruct, basically. Heme and blood iron function, calcium homeostasis and balance, and it has to do with pH and cell function. Neurotransmitter synthesis. You can see insulin secretion, even. So insulin is if you’re dealing with blood sugar issues, that’s a big factor, right? Insulin, diabetes.

So you can see the mitochondria play a large role in many aspects, but let’s get into health conditions, talk about health conditions that are associated with mitochondrial dysfunction, mitochondrial dysfunction, such as cancer. So cancer, diabetes, fibromyalgia, serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorders are also related to mitochondrial dysfunction. So you can see there’s a lot related to it. This isn’t just me making stuff up. This is in the study here. There’s a lot of unknowns, but we want to go through what we’re finding from this report here.

So there’s a couple of components that mitochondrial dysfunction can take place. It can take place as a primary or inherited function, or it can be in a secondary or acquired dysfunction. So primary, basically what that means is … Turn off this thing here. I’m going to turn that off. Okay. Wait, wait, let me turn off … Oh well.

So primary dysfunction results from mitochondrial damage to the DNA. So this is when we have mutations that we inherit from our mother because our mother is the sole contributor of mitochondrial function that they give to us. So one thing I want to point out, and it says right here, “Mitochondrial DNA has a much higher mutation rate than nuclear DNA.” So basically, it’s easier to mutate these mitochondria and cause different DNA damages within our cells, and then it also damages reactive oxidation species, which so does radiation and chemotherapy.

Now what I want to point out about this is a lot of people … So I hear this a lot in the medical community, which I don’t know why, because the research is pretty conclusive that we actually do have some control over our DNA through our lifestyle choices, through our diet, through our exercise regimens, through what we eat, like I said, lifestyle choices. Sleep, if we drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, all of this affects our DNA. Some people like to relate it to a gun with bullets in it, and you may have DNA that puts you in a predisposition towards, let’s say, obesity, you’re going to get overweight. Well, if you eat bad all the time and you take in too many calories and you don’t exercise, it’s like squeezing the trigger of a gun. The bullets in there, it doesn’t do any good until you squeezed the trigger. So lifestyle choices play a huge role in our genetic aspects. So I don’t want you to think, and I hear a lot of doctors say that genetics are the cause, so it just should make you give up, don’t worry about it, nothing you can do, but that is not true. We’re finding through research that genetics can be controlled through a diet and lifestyle choices.

I’m sorry, I got a little off topic there. Secondary mitochondrial dysfunction results from the influence of external mechanisms such as our environment or pharmacological toxins that can damage these mitochondrial DNA. So pharmacological toxins, what does that mean? Basically what it sounds like. It’s medications, it’s pharmaceuticals. They actually have been found to damage your mitochondrial DNA. So these are more secondary or more what we get from our environment of choices we make that really affects it, and we also get it from, like I said, our genetics.

So fatigue, again, it mentions is the hallmark symptom of mitochondrial disease. Often described as a lack of energy, mental, physical, low endurance, prolonged recovery. Let’s see, it goes on here. The purpose of this review, so just to kind of help you explain the whole study here, is they’re talking about this review was to examine different markers of mitochondrial function in adults that have evidence of an association with fatigue, and they also say that the information in here needs to be studied further, of course. This is just a general overview of information. Obviously, more studies need to be done, more thorough studies. Part of the difficulty with this is defining fatigue, defining this mitochondrial function. So really in this whole study, they use two main classifications to determine mitochondrial dysfunction, actually three, but it’s mostly through a questionnaire or biopsies. Those are kind of challenging biopsies wise. I don’t like that. A couple of the case studies did use some blood analysis, of course, too.

What I’ve found is there’s different factors you can do with blood, and also too, questionnaires are pretty good. I like questionnaires. That’s why on my website, www.postchemonutrition.com, I spend a lot of time putting together a questionnaire, and that questionnaire, that health quiz is actually designed to evaluate, on a scale of zero to 100, what level you’re at for severe mitochondrial dysfunction, and it rates it all from different components in your body and stuff in different regions, but ultimately, the higher your score, the more mitochondrial dysfunction you have, and then my job is to basically watch that score. Your job is to watch that score go down as you replenish the mitochondria.

So let’s get in here. So I’m not going to get into all of the methods that were used, as again, it’ll take hours for us to go through that and explain it. I just want to go over the overview, because this was extremely thorough. Let’s see, we’ll keep going down. Let’s get down into some information here. So they went in and they’re testing different parts of the energy metabolism, ATP, how it’s related to the immune system, fatty acid metabolism. Gosh, it gets into genetics, but let’s get into the discussion. Actually, I think I highlighted this.

So genetics. So here’s a study that was done and they found that there’s 11 mitochondrial function related genes that are differentially expressed during radiation therapy, so that’s why I highlighted that. So basically what they found is when you’re doing radiation therapy for prostate cancer, they’ve had 11 mitochondrial related genes that have been negatively affected during this radiation. So that has been significantly associated with fatigue from this radiation therapy. That’s just something I wanted to mention, because some of you that have been through radiation therapy or chemotherapy, some of you bounce back, that fatigue goes away, but some of you, it does not. So obviously, that’s why we’re discussing this, for those of you that it’s not.

This isn’t just for people that have been through radiation chemotherapy, this is for anybody that’s got major mitochondrial dysfunction and fatigue, whether it’s from side effects of medications or vaccines, I’ve seen that happen, just lifestyle choices, other infections, immune system issues. So I won’t get into all that. Molds and fungus issues, right? That’s a very common issue, cause a lot of fatigue and dysfunction. So let’s get into the discussion. Talked about carnitine, which is in our Cell Revive kit. It says, “Dysfunctional carnitine levels were reported in all six studies that investigated the biomarkers. However, the specifics of the dysfunctions varied among these studies.” So they had some specifics that were some variables that were there, but ultimately, they said that carnitine levels are being found to be an associated factor in a biomarker for mitochondrial dysfunction.

“Genetic profiles were the second most study. Even though different genes are reported across the studies, common pathways from metabolism, energy production and protein transportation, mitochondrial morphology, central nervous system dysfunction and post viral infection.” I know some people blame viruses as a component for cancer. I think from my studies, I read, I believe it was around, I can’t remember exactly, so don’t quote me on this, but I think it was somewhere around five to 10% of cancers were caused by viral infections or contributed to by viral infections. So, well, if you have low mitochondrial dysfunction, that can contribute to viral infections. So it’s coming back to mitochondria.

“The most commonly investigated enzyme was CoQ10,” which is definitely in our Cell Revive, product, and, “It was the only mitochondrial biomarker found to have a consistent association with fatigue and identified in this overall review.” So CoQ10 is actually extremely important. Did not mean to do that there. So we’ll do this here.

Now, CoQ10 deficiency can either be primary or secondary. So in other words, inherited or acquired from lifestyle choices. “Primary deficiency stems from gene issues,” so that’s genetics, whereas secondary from anything that is not primary in nature. Well, isn’t that interesting? So basically, it’s just lifestyle. Should just say anything that’s lifestyle involved. CoQ10 is endogenously produced, which means we make it inside, endogenously, internally and therefore dietary intake has minimal influence. I love this line here, because they say, “Dietary intake has minimal influence,” because you’ve got to remember, everything that happens within our body happens because of what we eat. So I’m not sure how they can say that, but then it goes on to say, “However, if CoQ10 is found to be depleted,” which yeah, mitochondrial dysfunction, usually you’re going to find it depleted, “Especially with primary deficiencies.”

So if it’s acquired, if you have genetic predisposition or acquired deficiency of CoQ10, “Supplementation is the remaining recommended therapeutic option.” So it’s saying you should take supplements if it’s genetic and acquired or lifestyle, but we don’t need to here, but here we need to. So kind of contraindication here. I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Either way, my research has found that supplementing with CoQ10 definitely helps people get and feel better, because you usually don’t get enough from diet anymore. In fact, it’s very rare.

Let’s see. So in here, another bold blue statement. “In clinical practice, vitamins such as riboflavin,” which is B2, “niacin,” which is B3, “vitamin E and other mitochondrial factors, including carnitine, lipoic acid,” and levocarnitine and acetylcarnitine, “Are used as supplemental treatments for mitochondrial disorders in order to enhance the electron transport chain enzyme activity or the production of making ATP as an antioxidant defense within itself.”

So basically, what this means is these nutrients are needed to help produce and make energy from the mitochondria to make activity take place and help you have antioxidants to protect your body. So you need good mitochondrial function, and CoQ10 has been shown to have clinical benefits that have been attributed to its antioxidant properties and its role in cellular bioenergetics. So basically, CoQ10 helps with antioxidants and cellular energy.

So that being said, “It is being used as a therapeutic option for a number of mitochondrial related clinical conditions, including those with cardiovascular disease, reproductive issues and neurodegenerative diseases.” So that’s really important, because if you have a neurological disorder, cardiovascular disorder or reproductive disorder, they’re finding CoQ10 is being found to help with those, and I should say not just CoQ10, but supplementing it with it has, therapeutic wise, is helping with those. Of course, “More clinical studies are needing to be confirmed to see the role of these vitamins and mitochondrial cofactors and function.” As you can see from my research page, I have a lot of studies that go on and continue to help revalidate a lot of these ingredients that are in there, and how the mitochondria play a role.

So here’s another one, feeding mitochondria, potential role of nutritional components to improve critical illness convalescence. Reversing mitochondrial dysfunction, fatigue and the adverse effects of chemotherapy of metastatic disease by molecular replacement therapy. That’s supplements right there. Nutritional supplements. So there’s a lot of studies in here. I’ll let you guys go through all of that, but basically, what I want to point out today is just that mitochondrial deficiency plays a huge role and it’s being found in this study to play a huge role in a lot of health ailments, and that includes fatigue, chronic fatigue. An issue they’re also having with the study, I’m reading here, sorry, “Research needs to develop and focus on developing a valid and reliable tool for measuring fatigue in clinical settings.” So basically, they don’t have a really good reliable tool to measure fatigue, so that’s why I said they have to kind of go off of some health quiz questionnaires, and then they use some biomarkers, like some, unfortunately, take some pieces of tissue and blood to help determine this, but ultimately, there’s not a real clear setting.

A lot of my research, again, I made a health quiz based off of my research and a lot of questions related to it, but ultimately, just chronic fatigue is a biomarker, a good marker for mitochondrial dysfunction.

Again, it says, “Therefore, the results from the review suggest further investigation to address the gaps in the current literature. Once the underlying mechanisms of fatigue are better understood, individualized and tailored therapies can be developed to improve quality of life in patients.” What I find interesting about this is basically what they’re saying is we need better studies and reviews, of course, but we might be able to tailorize therapies to help develop and improve the quality of life in patients that have been dealing with different health elements, including ones that have been through chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

What I kind of chuckle and laugh about this is, again, most doctors aren’t trained in nutrition. So how many doctors, even if all the studies are out there and they’re not trained in nutrition, how many of them are going to prescribe CoQ10 to help you get better? I’m sure there’ll be a handful, but the majority of them, I can tell you first from personal experience of 22 years, 23 years of practicing, most of them won’t tell you a nutrition is going to help you. Most of them are going to tell you you don’t need it, just eat better or eat healthy, and then you ask, “What’s that mean?”, and they really just get you out the door.

The other issue, too, is, I hate to say it, but there is no money in nutritional supplementations. You can’t patent them, you cannot patent a nutritional product. You can only patent a pharmaceutical medication or drug. That’s when you can make billions. Nutritional products, anybody can sell them. What I’m talking about here, CoQ10, anybody can listen to and go by any CoQ10. Unfortunately, they’re not all made equal and the same, and you have to have cofactors to help them work better, so you can end up wasting money or not getting any benefit. Unlikely you’ll get any negative side effects from it unless you take really mega dosages, but for the most part, you’re not going to see doctors prescribing nutritional products to help people get better. I’m sorry. You don’t care how many studies are done. Most of them just don’t get into that, and that’s okay. Let them do what they’re supposed to do, let them do what they’re skilled in, and then find doctors that are more natural based or review studies like this and do some work on your own. You’re allowed to think for yourself, I promise.

Speaking of which, today, just general educational information. Now like I said, I have my Cell Revive products here and Bindatox products. I’ve got research on them, but ultimately, these aren’t meant for everybody. You get to do your own research, your own digging. I definitely don’t want to make any claims that Cell Revive is going to reverse any diseases or conditions and ailments and cancers and all that. I’m just going to read this study, show what they say, let you decide for yourself what you feel is best for you and your health, but the bottom line is I want you to think for yourself. We’ve been teaching our kids, critical thinking is important. Just because your doctor wears a white coat and has this special aura about him or a great dot guy or whatever he is, they don’t know everything. I don’t know everything. No doctor does. Ultimately, you are about you and your health.

So our next topic is going to be on nutrition, cancer, oncologists, and how oncologists … Let’s see if I can blow this up a little bit. So here we go. So it talks about … “Lack of guidance will often lead to doubtful self managements.”

I don’t know. Sorry. So this one’s in the European .., Talking about it led to in European Cancer Patient Coalition, because they’re finding that a lot of cancer patients who’ve been through stuff aren’t getting any nutritional guidance or testing and also any training or education. So that’s what this study is about. We’re just going to briefly go over it, because again, I get a lot of people saying their oncologist says I don’t need it. I don’t need to eat healthy. I don’t need to avoid this or that. I don’t need a good nutrition regimen. I don’t need to take supplements. Just enjoy life. Right? That’s what I hear. I’m sure you’ve heard that many times over, and if you’ve been on any forums, it’s the same thing, and I’m here to tell you that all these studies I’ve seen, all the training I’ve had, all of the certifications I’ve had, that is not true. You need extra help. Your body’s been damaged because we know radiation and chemotherapy damages you. Any doctor or person that argues that is completely lost. That’s why there’s side effects. Some people just make it through better than others.

So I want to go over, because a lot of people say oncologists know everything, I’m going to show you that this study shows they don’t know everything, and they’re not thoroughly trained in nutrition. So we’ll go over that next time. So until then, I hope you got a little bit out of this. I hope you got some good, helpful information and education. I hope you can see that mitochondrial dysfunction plays a huge part if you’re dealing with a lot of low energy. You’ve got to restore that mitochondrial function, you’ve got to get those nutrients in there, and my Cell Revive product that I have here on Post Chemo Nutrition, let’s go to the page here, is designed 100% by me to help restore that mitochondrial function, but what I found is it works better if you reduce inflammation around the cells so the nutrients can get in to get the most out of it. So that’s why we have a mix of different inflammation products and mitochondrial products in there, and immune boosting products.

So please go to the website, review the information, and I really hope you do yourself a favor and invest in your health, get Cell Revive so you can get better, feel better. It is not a lifelong supplement. I know it’s kind of expensive, but again, because I’ve got quality ingredients, unfortunately that’s what it costs to get this product made, and we don’t have a very big profit margin. So what I want you to do is just take it, take the quiz. So if you go back here to our homepage, you can see we have a quiz. So when you take the quiz right here, when you take the quiz, you’re going to scale yourself on zero to a 100. When you’re below … I like to say below 15, even 10, you’re feeling good, you’re doing great, you can stop taking Cell Revive.

So everybody’s different on timeframe, there’s so many factors. It could be as little as one to three months to as much as 12 to 24 months, even. Actually, the most I’ve seen is 18 months, but it could be longer, everybody’s different. If you don’t exercise, you don’t eat well, you’re taking a ton of mitochondrial deficiency causing medications, it’s going to be a lot harder to catch up, I call it the treadmill effect, you’re running fast doing stuff, but you’re not moving anywhere. So sometimes you do have to clean up the diet a little bit, incorporate a little exercise to tolerance, don’t wear yourself out if you’re mitochondrial deficient, and the nice part is if you’re very fatigued and you can’t exercise, which is a common complaint I get, Cell Revive will help increase your mitochondrial function. So what you’re going to find is that, I’ll just use an example, I think I’ve seen it …

It’s sad. I don’t mean to laugh, I’m sorry, but I have had patients that, literally a three minute brisk walk, are exhausted. They can’t function, they can’t move, they’re worn out from a three minute brisk walk. Talk about extreme amount of mitochondrial deficiency, right? Well, Cell Revive, when you take it, without even exercising, you’re going to find that that three minutes will turn into four or five, six minutes, nine minutes, 12 minutes. It keeps increasing. So once you get to the point where you can function better and not be overly exhausted, you’re going to find exercise is going to come a lot easier as you’re restoring that mitochondrial function, and again, some people, that’s quicker than others. So be patient with yourself, just stay persistent or consistent with it, and you’ll get and feel better.

So again, I am Dr. Dylan Foster with Post Chemo Nutrition. I hope this was helpful, and for now, I’m out of here.