Mitochondria and aging. How to keep mitochondria healthy? Listen to your mother! 6

Mitochondria and aging. How to keep mitochondria healthy? Listen to your mother! 6

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You've done some very interesting work on the function of mitochondria and the rate of aging. Mitochondria are fascinating organisms, sort of the cells within the cells. Could you please comment on the role that you discovered mitochondria play in the aging process at the fundamental metabolic basis? Yes, you're right. I think if I had to choose one thing, so we know if there are nine different processes that people have called the hallmarks of aging, one of which is mitochondrial dysfunction. Dr. Steven Austad, PhD. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. And if I had to pick one of these that I thought was the basis of aging, that was the really the original lesion, the original problem of aging, it would be mitochondrial damage. And that's because if you think about it, mitochondria are the main energy producers of our body. We require energy for all of the other things that keep us alive. It's just not for our metabolism. We need it for repairing our DNA, for keeping our proteome sound. All of these things require energy. Dr. Steven Austad, PhD. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. And the energy ultimately comes from the mitochondria. So the more we understand about how to keep mitochondria healthy, the better it is. And of course, mitochondria are being damaged all the time, and they're being regenerated inside ourselves. And so that process might give us a hint, well, if we could increase the turnover and keep generating healthy new mitochondria, that might be a key to understanding aging at its most fundamental level, perhaps, and it's an unusual question, but how does one keep their mitochondria healthy? Well, if I could answer that question, then I would be fabulously wealthy. So we don't yet know. I mean, we know a lot of lifestyle factors that keep us healthy. We hope to have medications that do better than that in the future. But right now, we know that eating a healthy diet, meaning lots of fruit and vegetables, not drinking excessively, obviously not smoking, getting plenty of physical activity is helpful. Dr. Steven Austad, PhD. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. All things that yours and my mothers told us to keep us healthy. In fact, we know now from studying different groups of people who do those things and who don't do those things, there is going to be a ten-year difference in healthy life, just from the way we manage our diet and our physical activity. Well, that's very important to know, because ten years of healthspan is a long time. And that's very precious for every person. That's right. That's right. And so I think, while we're waiting for the drugs to be developed and to be approved, the best thing that we can do is the things that your mother told you when you were a child. Dr. Steven Austad, PhD. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. 

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