Editor's Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published October 20, 2024.
In my appearance on The Jimmy Dore Show, we explored a vital yet often overlooked aspect of human well-being — cellular health and the myriad of silent toxins eroding it. I shared insights from my book, "Your Guide to Cellular Health: Unlocking the Science of Longevity and Joy."
This article reviews the most pivotal points from our extensive discussion, revealing the vital components that sustain health and the modern challenges that threaten them. As I shared with Dore, for 15 years I struggled with a mind-bending, unexplained rash that caused me to lose sleep at night because of unrelenting itching. All the physicians I consulted, some of the best out there, had no clue how to resolve it.
This personal battle led me to a groundbreaking realization: Impaired mitochondrial function is at the heart of many chronic diseases. Mitochondria, the powerhouses of your cells, produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP) — your body’s essential energy currency.
Everyone knows you can't run a car without fuel. Similarly, your body is a vehicle that transports you around, and if you don't have enough energy, it's a problem. By my estimate, humans historically produced about twice the amount of ATP compared to today, and I believe the influx of chemical toxins has drastically reduced cellular energy production, contributing to a significant decline in overall health.
The ATP Crisis — A Modern Epidemic
By my estimate, humans may be producing up to 75% less ATP today than a century ago. This decline is not just a number — it's a reflection of our deteriorating health. The question remains: Why has ATP production plummeted?
Much of the answer, I believe, lies in the toxins that have permeated our environment over the past 150 years. The Industrial Revolution and subsequent advancements introduced chemical poisons into our lives, fundamentally disrupting our cellular machinery. Among these toxins, seed oils like soybean, corn, and sunflower oil stand out as primary culprits in harming your cellular energy.
Seed Oils — A Hidden Drain on Your Cellular Energy
Seed oils rich in polyunsaturated fats (PUFs) are, in my view, one of the main drivers undermining your health, and excess consumption has been linked to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and dementia. These oils, often misleadingly labeled as "healthy" vegetable oils, can wreak havoc on mitochondrial function. Consuming excessive amounts can overload your cells with harmful fats, crippling their ability to produce ATP.
Safe alternatives include beef tallow, ghee, grass fed butter, and coconut oil. Eating out poses a significant challenge for those striving to avoid seed oils like canola and soybean oil, which is why I recommend preparing most of your meals at home. When you do eat out, The Templeton List (TempletonList.com) can help you find restaurants that cook with healthier fats. You can also ask your server which oils the kitchen uses and request that your food be prepared with butter or tallow instead.
Many restaurants may not realize the extent of seed oil contamination in their food. By asking questions and requesting pure fats, you can help protect your health while raising awareness. The prevalence of adulterated oils, even in the case of products like extra virgin olive oil, makes vigilance essential. Cooking your own meals at home is the most reliable way to reduce your exposure to harmful PUFs.
The Truth About Sugar — A Cellular Fuel
Contrary to popular belief, not all sugars are detrimental. Sugar, when used wisely, can help restore your energy. The key lies in understanding the type of sugar and its role in your metabolism. Real sugar — specifically glucose, also known as dextrose — is the preferred fuel for your mitochondria. Unlike high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is harmful, glucose is essential for efficient energy production.
However, balance is important. If you consume more sugar than your cells can process, it may disrupt insulin and hormonal balance. For most adults, I recommend about 250 grams of targeted carbohydrates a day — far more if you're physically active. For individuals suffering from severe mitochondrial poisoning, glucose can be especially valuable, providing readily usable energy to sustain vital bodily functions. This nuanced understanding of sugar's role challenges the conventional narrative that all carbohydrates are harmful.
Your Gut Microbiome — Balancing Good and Bad Bacteria
Your gut health plays a pivotal role in cellular energy and overall well-being. I explained the importance of colonocytes — cells lining your colon that rely on short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, propionate, and acetate, produced by beneficial bacteria. When mitochondrial function is impaired, these colonocytes consume less oxygen and can become damaged, allowing oxygen to seep back into your gut.
This shift creates an environment where pathogenic, oxygen-tolerant bacteria thrive, producing endotoxins that can further damage mitochondria. This creates a vicious cycle I call the "black hole of death."
To break free from this cycle, it's essential to restore the balance of gut bacteria. Unfortunately, many people are unaware of the state of their microbiome, as beneficial bacteria are often overshadowed by their pathogenic counterparts. Advanced testing, though expensive, can provide insights into the state of your gut health, but practical dietary adjustments are equally important. With this in mind, talk to your health care provider about whether this testing is appropriate for you.
Until an intervention targets the factors harming your colonocytes and restores optimal oxygen levels, the population of beneficial, oxygen-intolerant microbes is unlikely to be reestablished in your gut. This mitochondrial-gut microbiome communication is necessary for health. However, when oxygen-tolerant pathogenic bacteria dominate, they outcompete the beneficial, oxygen-intolerant bacteria, preventing the production of essential metabolites needed for vitality.
Restoring a low-oxygen environment in your colon is key because, without it, even the best lifestyle practices — such as exercise, adequate sleep, proper nutrition, and the use of supplements — may not result in significant improvement.
Therefore, avoiding mitochondrial poisons, including seed oils and endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), is essential to create the right conditions for restoring a healthy, oxygen-intolerant microbial population in your gut.
The Hidden Dangers of Plastics and Endocrine Disruptors
Beyond dietary choices, environmental toxins like plastics pose a significant threat to cellular health. Plastics contain and release EDCs that can stimulate estrogen receptors. These chemicals are pervasive, found in everyday items like water bottles and food wraps, and have been linked to various health issues, including certain hormone-related cancers.
EDCs disrupt hormonal balance, which can contribute to widespread health problems. One of the main ways these chemicals operate is by activating estrogen receptors within your cells. This activation can lead to an increased influx of calcium ions into your cells. Excessive intracellular calcium can dramatically elevate the levels of superoxide and nitric oxide.
These reactive molecules swiftly combine to form peroxynitrite, an extremely potent oxidant stressor. The formation of peroxynitrite can induce severe oxidative stress, resulting in significant cellular damage. In addition, when combined with natural estrogen, exposure to EDCs can contribute to estrogen overload and set off a series of harmful events.
One way you can help protect yourself is by supplementing with progesterone. For those unfamiliar, it's a hormone that's thought to "turn off" estrogen's activity, which can help maintain hormonal balance. To learn how to use it properly, I've provided a guide at the end of this article.
How EDCs May Set the Stage for Self-Attack Autoimmune Responses
EDCs pose a significant threat to your health and can initiate a cascade of negative effects that begin at the cellular level and ripple outward to impact your entire body. This proposed process unfolds in several interconnected stages, each building upon the last to create a perfect storm of health challenges in your system.
It all starts with your mitochondria — the powerhouses of your cells. EDCs can interfere with these crucial organelles, diminishing their ability to produce the energy your cells need to function optimally. This energy deficit isn't just a matter of you feeling tired; it has far-reaching consequences, particularly for your gut health.
Your digestive system relies on a delicate balance of beneficial bacteria, many of which thrive in an oxygen-free environment. The energy shortage caused by mitochondrial dysfunction can disrupt this carefully maintained anaerobic setting in your gut. As a result, these beneficial microorganisms struggle to survive and perform their vital functions within you.
One of the key roles of these gut bacteria is the production of short-chain fatty acids. These compounds are essential for maintaining the health and integrity of your intestinal lining. They act as a primary food source for the cells that make up this barrier and help regulate the immune responses in your gut. However, when your gut bacteria are compromised due to the altered environment, their ability to produce these crucial fatty acids can be severely impaired.
The absence of adequate short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) can lead to a weakening of your intestinal barrier. This condition is often referred to as "leaky gut" or increased intestinal permeability. In this state, the tight junctions between the cells lining your intestines become loose, allowing substances that should remain within your gut to pass into your bloodstream.
This is where the situation can take a particularly concerning turn for you. Among the substances that can now penetrate your weakened gut barrier are proteins that bear a striking resemblance to structures within your own body — such as those found in your joints or neurological tissues.
When these foreign yet familiar proteins enter your bloodstream, your immune system is faced with a case of mistaken identity. It may perceive these proteins as threats and mount an attack against them.
The problem is, due to the similarity between these intruding proteins and your own body tissues, your immune response may not stop at neutralizing the perceived invaders. Instead, it can turn against your own cells and tissues that share similar structures — a process known as molecular mimicry. This misdirected immune attack is the hallmark of autoimmune diseases, where your body essentially wages war against itself.
Thus, in this proposed chain of events, an initial disruption of cellular energy production by EDCs could ultimately leave your body's own defense mechanisms tricked into causing harm to you. Individual links in this chain have been described in research, but the full sequence from EDC exposure to autoimmune disease has not yet been demonstrated in people. This complex chain of events underscores the far-reaching and interconnected nature of your body's systems and highlights how these seemingly small disruptions can cascade into significant health challenges for you.
The challenge lies in finding safe alternatives, as conventional plastics are laden with harmful chemicals. I'm in the process of creating bio-compatible alternatives to plastics in order to help reduce EDC exposure and promote environmental sustainability.
Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) — A Mitochondrial Poison
Another insidious threat to your cellular health today is exposure to EMFs. Even more than other toxins, EMFs permeate our environment, making them a pervasive danger that is often overlooked.
Electromagnetic frequencies describe all types of radiation, including beneficial ones like sunlight. However, the radiofrequency EMFs emitted by modern devices such as cellphones, Wi-Fi routers, and microwaves operate in the gigahertz range, posing significant risks to your mitochondria.
While ionizing radiation like X-rays directly damages cells by creating free radicals, EMFs cause harm through a different mechanism called non-thermal effects. These non-thermal effects disrupt cellular function without raising tissue temperatures, making the damage less visible but, in my view, no less concerning.
EMFs are thought to interfere with mitochondria by increasing calcium ion influx into cells through voltage-gated calcium channels. Elevated calcium levels can catalyze the production of harmful free radicals, leading to oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. This process mirrors the damage caused by other mitochondrial poisons, like seed oils and EDCs, creating a vicious cycle of cellular decline.
The Telecommunication Industry's Deceptive Practices
The telecommunications industry, much like the tobacco industry before it, has employed deceptive strategies to downplay the dangers of EMFs. They used the same playbook as the tobacco industry to whitewash their products and obfuscate the real risks. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, for instance, barred state and local governments from regulating the placement of wireless facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radiofrequency emissions, as long as those facilities comply with federal limits. This sharply limits local oversight and allowing the industry to expand with little accountability.
They promote the idea that non-ionizing radiation is safe because it doesn't cause immediate thermal damage. This misleading narrative overlooks the potential long-term, chronic effects of EMF exposure, which I believe accumulate over time and may contribute to a host of health problems. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency EMFs as "possibly carcinogenic to humans," and researchers have also explored links to neurological disorders and reduced cellular energy.
Practical Steps to Mitigate EMF Exposure
Understanding the dangers of EMFs is only the first step; taking actionable measures to reduce exposure is crucial for safeguarding your health. Here are several strategies I recommend:
1. Limit cellphone use — Avoid keeping your cellphone close to your body, especially when sleeping. Cellphones emit significant levels of EMFs, and prolonged exposure may disrupt mitochondrial function. I personally use an EMF shield tent to create a low-radiation environment during sleep, which helps minimize my mitochondria's exposure to these frequencies.
2. Reduce Wi-Fi dependency — Turn off Wi-Fi routers when not in use, especially at night. Wi-Fi is a constant source of EMFs in many households, and minimizing its operation drastically reduces overall exposure. For essential connectivity, use wired Ethernet connections instead of wireless alternatives.
3. Create EMF-free zones — Designate certain areas of your home, such as your bedroom, as EMF-free zones. By establishing a sanctuary as free as possible from man-made EMFs, you help provide your mitochondria with the environment they need to function optimally. Simple steps like using wired devices and keeping electronic gadgets out of these areas make a significant difference.
4. Use EMF shielding products — Investing in EMF-shielding products, such as shielding tents or bed canopies, can provide additional protection. These products are designed to deflect or absorb radiofrequency radiation, which may help reduce your exposure. Be cautious with phone cases or stickers that claim to block EMFs, however — the Federal Trade Commission has warned that products that interfere with your phone's signal may cause it to draw more power and possibly emit more radiation. While not a complete solution, well-designed shielding offers a practical layer of defense against unavoidable EMF exposure.
Reclaiming Health — Strategies for Protection and Restoration
To break free from this cycle of mitochondrial poisoning, it is imperative to adopt comprehensive strategies that eliminate exposure to harmful toxins and support mitochondrial function. Here are several actionable steps:
1. Eliminate seed oils and processed foods — As mentioned, seed oils like soybean, corn, and sunflower oil are laden with PUFAs that oxidize easily, producing toxic metabolites that can damage mitochondria. By removing these oils from your diet, you reduce a primary source of mitochondrial poisoning. Aim to keep your total linoleic acid (LA) intake below 5 grams a day.
2. Adopt safe fats and whole foods — Incorporate saturated fats such as beef tallow, ghee, grass fed butter, and coconut oil into your diet. These fats are stable and support mitochondrial function without the harmful effects of PUFAs. Additionally, focus on whole, unprocessed foods that provide essential nutrients without the added toxins found in processed products.
3. Minimize EMF exposure — Limit your exposure to EMFs by reducing the use of wireless devices and turning off Wi-Fi when not in use. Embracing EMF shielding solutions, such as shielding tents, and creating EMF-free zones in your home may significantly reduce cellular stress and support mitochondrial health.
4. Optimize sun exposure — Embrace sun exposure around solar noon once you have eliminated seed oils from your diet for at least four to six months. Proper sun exposure enhances mitochondrial energy production and supports overall health. Wear minimal clothing to maximize the benefits and build up your time in the sun gradually to avoid sunburning.
5. Restore gut health — Addressing gut microbiome imbalances is crucial for maintaining cellular energy. Focus on consuming beneficial bacteria from fermented foods and limiting fiber intake if pathogenic bacteria dominate your gut. For most adults, white rice and whole fruits are the recommended first step for restoring gut function.
The Power of Education and Advocacy
Raising awareness about the true impact of these mitochondrial poisons is essential for empowering individuals to take control of their health. Education and advocacy are crucial in countering the misinformation spread by powerful industries.
As I explained to Dore, that influence runs deep. After the 1910 Flexner Report, powerful foundations reshaped medical education in the U.S., and in my view, that shift pushed natural therapies out of the curriculum in favor of pharmaceuticals. By informing the public about the real dangers of seed oils, EMFs, and EDCs, we foster a movement toward healthier living and systemic change.
On an individual level, you need to take proactive steps to protect your health, even in the face of pervasive EMF exposure and misleading public health directives. Simple lifestyle changes, combined with a commitment to natural health principles, can significantly enhance mitochondrial function and overall well-being.
A Vision for a Healthier Future
Looking ahead, my mission is to continue developing solutions that protect and restore cellular health. These efforts aim to harmonize technological advancements with natural health practices, ensuring that progress does not come at the expense of our well-being.
The goal is to empower individuals with the knowledge and tools needed to maintain robust mitochondrial function and achieve lasting health. By addressing the root causes of mitochondrial poisoning and advocating for informed, holistic health practices, we’ll pave the way for a future of longevity and joy.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.