Dr. Kay Durairaj 0:00
Hey. Well, hello, hello, guys. You're listening to beauty bites with Dr Kay secrets of a plastic surgeon, and then it's time to talk to my one of my favorite people, Courtney van bussem. She is the Chief Operating Officer of longevity launch labs. And today's talk is going to be all about the mitochondria, the mighty powerhouse of the cell. It's kind of the driver of all energy and reactions. It's the way that's the fuel that actually powers the ability for DNA to self repair, and it's important for longevity. Now, longevity launch Labs is a really special thing. It's an innovation incubator accelerating many breakthrough products and companies that are involved with Cellular Medicine and longevity medicine. Courtney's background is in Biomedical Engineering, and she has experience spanning fortune 500 consulting to running clinical operations. So she's got this rare blend of insight between the clinic and actual execution and practice of medicine. Before launching this, she modernized operations at Boulder longevity Institute. This is one of the best cellular regenerative medicine clinics around with Dr ureth out there today, she leads launch labs mission to translate cutting edge science into real world impact, and this is what I am so thrilled about, because you bring products that are really cutting edge longevity medicine into actual practice, Because mostly we just read about this stuff in journals, and it's hard to bring into practice. But welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 1 1:46
Courtney, thank you, Dr Kay, thanks for having me back and excited to dive into just cellular science and why mitochondria are so cool. I know this came about. We were doing another conversation about some other products that had to do with cellular energy. And I think people don't really understand why the mitochondria is at the core of, like, all health. So I'm excited to dive

Dr. Kay Durairaj 2:07
into it. Yes, okay, tell us what you think is cool about mitochondria, because I think they're cool too. I'm very nerdy.

Speaker 1 2:16
Well, they are cool, so hopefully everybody will think they're cool by the end of this. No, I think. Well, just to start, let's frame what are mitochondria? You kind of mentioned it. You know, they're the powerhouse of the cell. Everybody remembers that from their bio 101, class, and it's not wrong, because they power the energy that our body needs for literally every single function. So you can think of them as kind of tiny rechargeable batteries, right? They they make, they take the food we eat, they take the air we breathe, the oxygen, and convert that into ATP. And so ATP is really the actual, you know, biological energy. And our mitochondria are the little cellular command centers that are making the ATP and signaling it. Hey, this is where we need the energy. So ATP powers everything from our heart to our brain to our skin, right, creating collagen and elastin. And I think this is just something that helps ground as we get deeper into this. But our mitochondria actually were originally their own little species. So back billions of years ago, mitochondria were lived, you know, outside of other cells, as this bacterium, and then some ancient cell engulfs the mitochondria and realized, hey, if I, you know, have this partnership, I can make more energy because this, the mitochondria can use oxygen to make energy more efficiently. So it's really that partnership that allowed for complex life to form, right? We needed to be able to figure out how to produce more energy for things like the brain and the heart and the skin to actually develop more complexly. So really, without our mitochondria, we wouldn't even exist. And even today, inside of our cells, our mitochondria have their own DNA. They have their own, you know, language of being able to communicate with other systems of our body, because they're very important in this cellular signaling side of it. So they do a lot of really cool things. That's why they're so cool.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 4:12
They really do, for me, that, that idea that they or their own freestanding bacteria that became engulfed into cells, and now we, you know so much universal memory and knowledge is built into these mitochondria. That's cross species, actually, yeah, it's just, it's very basic life structure. So, so what happens to our mitochondria as we age? And kind of, how, how do mitochondria? In some cases, they prevent inflammation. In some cases they cause inflammation.

Speaker 1 4:43
Yeah, well, so our mitochondria are like these little structures, right? And as we age, they actually start to lose their integrity. And so that's part of why we see all these downstream effects, and we'll get to inflammation in a second. But when you see a picture of a mitochondria, and it has all those. Squiggly lines in it, right? People are used to seeing those squiggly lines are actually the folds of the mitochondria, and we call those Cris day, and that is important because it increases the surface area for energy to be produced. So there's all this, you know, electrons being transported inside the mitochondria, and they have to have really tight folds, to have the proper power to create ATP as we age and as our mitochondria and our systems are exposed to all the stressors of our environment, those folds can start to kind of come apart, and as they flatten and as they spread out, they become less efficient at actually communicating and making energy. So the ability to make ATP from the nutrients that our bodies in taking drops, and this is really why we start to see all these other things happen downstream. You know, our skin cells, they can't renew as fast if the energy is not being produced as quickly. Collagen production slows down. The body has a harder time repairing and healing, and all of this then becomes disease over time, right? Things like just fatigue can turn into neurodegeneration, all because our mitochondria can't communicate within the cell as effectively, and then they also can't clear out the bad mitochondria, because we have to, we have to create healthy mitochondria, and we have to discard bad mitochondria. So as we age, those things start to happen, and we have to give ourselves the right, you know, inputs which we can talk about to avoid that. So that's what's happening as we age. And then what's the inflammation? Side of it is inflammation, and inflammation comes from, I mean, people at this point know, right, our bad diets, our pollution, not sleeping, enough, too much stress, all of those things stress the mitochondria. And because the mitochondria are having to work so hard all the time, they're especially at risk. I guess you could say of having being influenced by all these stressors. So they're one, they're helping to you have to have proper mitochondria to remove inflammation, to sell, send the cell signals for proper repair. But if our mitochondria aren't functioning, they're actually adding to the inflammation, because they're creating more of these reactive oxygen species, because they're trying too hard to make energy, if you will. So it's kind of a long answer to they fall apart as we age. They don't create enough new ones, and that in turn, adds to inflammation and doesn't provide the proper repair signals for treating inflammation.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 7:40
How early do you think that that dysregulation and dysfunction pattern can start like in your 20s and your 30s? When do we really start to see mitochondrial aging? Yeah.

Speaker 1 7:50
I mean, I was actually just at a conference this past weekend, and there was this ER doc there, and he did a whole lecture on why your ER visit happened 15 years ago, and it was really interesting. And he did a really good job. He took high like, he used three high functioning, you know, people who could be in the room, essentially, these are all doctors and professionals who had a stroke or a heart attack. And then he did a story backwards 15 years, and it was organ systems starting to go here and this start, and then cellular dysfunction 15 years ago that led to their stroke or their heart attack. So I think our mitochondria are aging as soon as you know, we start to live in a world that we're not able to heal and repair as quickly, which is kind of we're seeing post puberty, right? Like, that's really when all of our cell systems, they're not as in tune, because they want to get you to puberty to reproduce, and then at that point, it's like, okay, you've done your job, and they start to fail. So I think when we start to think at cellular system level, that's needing to be paid attention to in your 20s, in your 30s, so that you're not the guy 15 years from now who's in the ER, with a, you know, a heart heart attack or a stroke. That's obviously the extreme example, but

Dr. Kay Durairaj 9:11
that's very interesting, I think, in everyday life, is that what's showing up is fatigue and slower recovery and like injuries from little, minor things and skin changes. Because I think once you hit 40, you know you you know you can strain your shoulder from brushing your hair wrong, you pull the wrong muscle right, you sleep wrong, and you just wake up tweaked. And that maybe is when these mitochondrial damage changes start to accumulate to where, like you can't repair from a small little thing that when you were 10 years old, you hit the floor with your roller skates and you just bounce right back.

Speaker 1 9:46
Exactly, yep. No, I think I mean, mitochondria are kind of that ground zero for both disease but Beauty and the sense that they set the crossroads of every essential process in the body, energy. Repair, detoxification, cellular communication. And so when you're young and your mitochondria are working, it's able to do that repair, it's able to do that detox. And as your mitochondria become damaged, then it doesn't and that translates to everything you just said. You know, you have fatigue, you have brain fog, because your cells don't get enough ATP to keep your brain sharp and energized in our world, right skin is actually such a huge energy consumer, and I think people don't think about the fact that you're turning over your skin every month, in essence, and the amount of energy it takes to make new collagen and make new make elastin and have proper skin function, and so as the mitochondria can't give your skin enough energy, that's where dullness or wrinkles or fine lines, it all really root causes back to a dysfunction in your energy system.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 10:56
Are there some lifestyle shifts or things that you can do that. Can improve, you know, mitochondrial health. And what are you actually doing for yourself? Yeah.

Speaker 1 11:06
I mean, the good news is that when you were catching something at the like cellular root cause level, we can really undo or reverse a lot of the damage that, because it's meant to take stressors and then recover from them. And so there's a lot of things, both lifestyle wise, nutrient wise, that, that you can do so myself. I mean, the biggest one is exercise. Everybody loves to talk about it, but yeah, actually, is that important? I think when you when you're thinking about how to keep your mitochondria healthy, and maybe you've talked about this on other podcasts, but this concept of hormesis, right? So hormesis is a little bit of stress, and the right kind of stress can actually make you stronger, and exercise is the example of that, right? You're creating little micro tears in your muscles so that they grow back stronger and bigger, and your mitochondria thrive on going from states of stress to states of repair, states of stress, Straits of repair. So anything that's going to put your system in this, you know, hormetic levels of stress state is going to be really critical. So another one would be intermittent fasting. And it doesn't even have to be, I know people get like, oh, I have to do 16 hours. I have to do 24 hour fast. No, just don't eat for 12 to 14 hours overnight. You know, stop eating early. Wait until then enough times fast to eat breakfast. Because when your cells don't have energy input, they go into a stress state to recover and repair. So those are two. I mean, I'm not a big faster myself in the sense I used to do that where I would like do much longer, fast and I didn't work from my general energy and lifestyle side. But I do try to stop eating at, you know, seven and not eat until seven or eight the next morning.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 13:04
Yeah, I think I love intermittent fasting. I don't know. I've just gotten really into it and I don't feel that hungry in the morning. So I'm just trying to learn to honor my hunger signals and only eat when, like your actual stomach is growling and you need to eat because you can't think of anything but food. So I try to ignore all the social cues around me, like the people bringing donuts and the people wiggled lattes, and just like, think about my own state of mind. So I would encourage everybody really, like, you should not be eating in the nighttime. I think that mitochondria are also so linked to your diurnal cycles, and, you know, linked to circadian rhythm. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah.

Speaker 1 13:44
I mean, if you think about it, that these things are billions of years old, right? They they evolved with the light cycles. They evolved with day and night. And so this is intrinsic knowledge of our mitochondria, that it's supposed to do things at certain times with what light sources there are even, you know, and I think this is kind of a cool it touches into both worlds, but light in the form of red light and lasers that we're using in a lot of our therapies, that actually is making what's called cytochrome c, which is Part of the electron transport chain, making that more efficient inside of the mitochondria to create ATP. So literally, the wavelength of certain lights can go into the mitochondria and tell it to do things at the right time, or more efficiently to produce ATP. So lights completely, you know, a deeply rooted part of mitochondria health, and we sort of stumbled onto it. That's not stumbled, but that's already something we're doing in an esthetics and in beauty when it comes to making our skin look healthier, and that has a lot to do with making our mitochondria healthier.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 14:56
Yeah, the actual mechanism is the specific wavelengths of light that. Bigger mitochondrial energy and more biogenesis, mitochondrial biogenesis. So mitochondria themselves go through cycles, and as they age out, our body is supposed to process them, break them down. We call that mitophagy, like autophagy, where we're recycling broken down components and like there's probably a mitochondria junkyard somewhere in there, and the bad mitochondria become leaky batteries that emit all these toxins. So what are the strategies to improve new Genesis, mitochondrial biogenesis and to improve the recycling of the junkyard?

Speaker 1 15:36
Yeah, so I think to understand that I'm going to talk just briefly about some of the cellular pathways involved, because one of the key mechanisms for repair, right, which is the clearing out of the bad and helping to, you know, kill off the damaged mitochondria is a and PK. So people may have heard, you know, mTOR versus a and PK, there are these two really critical energy signaling pathways. And mTOR is your build phase, it's your put on muscle. It's your make new collagen, and PK is your rest and repair phase. That's where the bet, you know, you bring your system down from growth so that it can actually clear out, like you said, all that mitochondria in the junkyard, and it can recognize this mitochondria is shooting off too many reactive oxygen species we got to, you know, get that out of here so that it's not adding to our inflammatory cascade. So I think getting into a and PK. So you do that through exercise, you do that through fasting. There's, you know, supplements that you mentioned autophagy and autophagy and my autophagy kind of go hand in hand, but something like spermidine is a nutrient that you find in some foods as well as you can take supplementally, and that's helping to act activate that autophagy. So that's part of the clear out phase. And then there's the rebuild phase, making new mitochondria, and that involves this master switch that we call PGC one alpha. And so there's actually a lot of ways to activate PVC one alpha, and one of those is using things like NAD supporting mechanisms, right? We've talked before about one m&a, one methyl nicotinamide, and its role in supporting NAD metabolism. So you can use things like precursors. 1m is a post cursor to protect your NAD stores, but you need NAD is a critical molecule in the energy creation system of of your mitochondria. So you need to have enough NAD on, enough of good NAD, if you will, and then another one would be NAD

Dr. Kay Durairaj 17:52
itself is so important. I'd like to rest on that for a second, because we're hearing so much about NAD. We have to thank the Kardashians for bringing this level attention, in many ways, they're driving innovation and making people think. And we see people getting IV drips of NAD all the time, and like it's trending to be taking NAD shots, pills, supplements, IV. You and I have chatted before about what's the best form to take. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1 18:20
Yeah, I think, just like we're talking about here, where you need a little bit of stress and not too much stress, NAD, you, your cell is really smart to use NAD and restore it. We have a whole salvage mechanism for it. So I really like one m&a, one methyl nicotinamide, because it's working inside of the NAD metabolism, the system, as you would naturally to basically block the things that are eating up your NAD stores. So when you block the bad guys, you're not only reducing inflammation, you're allowing there to be enough NAD to do the good things, like help your DNA and power your mitochondria. So I prefer using the post cursor essentially of 1m and A, and you also do. I'll just, you know, we've talked about it before, but people do need to be careful with putting a ton of something into the system that's really specific in how it wants to be balanced. And so if people are taking a bunch of NAD, whether it's through infusions or precursors, and they're not supporting all the stuff downstream, you'll actually stress the system by putting too much of a good thing in.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 19:28
Yeah, so that's the strategy of preventing the bucket from leaking all of the NAD, the nice NAD that you're making now, and you're going to continue to make, and then taking IV doses. I think that that's aggressive. We do IV drips, and some patients really enjoy them. You will feel super energized by that, but it's gonna give you, like, a high peak. And then, you know, it's maybe not sustained, so you definitely have to do the daily sustaining as well, right?

Speaker 1 19:57
And also to, like, coming back, you know how. Do those things talk to your mitochondria? Well, intracellular NAD is important for that whole Kreb cycle and then the electron transport chain when you're doing an IV drip. Just so people understand that is a different version of NAD that has to enter the cell and be converted into intracellular NAD. So it's doing it a lot of NAD all at once. That's kind of got way more steps to it. So it's a good thing for people when they need to restore because they've been depleted for some reason. But you can actually overwhelm your mitochondria, like you said, if you're just doing it way high all all at once, constantly. Yeah.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 20:38
And then there is some concern too, that you can give too much of the actual NAD that can go down the wrong pathways. So is there a way to prevent that, or titrate to just the right amount? There's not really a way to know like so you just have to be very balanced, I guess. Yeah.

Speaker 1 20:53
I think, you know, 1m and A is a good way to make sure you're blocking that NNT apigenin is a way to block the other enzyme that degrades called CD 38 in general. You know, if you're doing all these things we're talking about to support your mitochondria, you really don't need to do a ton of supplementation with NAD because you're going to be protecting the natural salvage of your NAD system. Because your cells, your mitochondria, it's, they're, they're these little, you know, command centers that, and we call them these rechargeable batteries, because they have a system to just constantly be producing energy and taking it from the food we eat. So we don't have to give it a ton of other extraneous energy, if you will. Yeah.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 21:39
I mean being that, this is beauty bites. How do mitochondria directly impact beauty markers? So like, strong, you know, beautiful hair, thick hair, glowing skin, and how we heal after procedures?

Speaker 1 21:53
Yeah, I think you know all of the things that we talked about with just making collagen and supporting your skin integrity come from your mitochondria. So that's the skin cell renewal, the tissue recovery, to keep your barrier strong, you need mitochondria functioning to do that, and then to power the fibroblasts that are, you know, the interweaving of all of that, I think, something else that people don't necessarily connect the dots on, and why I love talking to you and talking cellular science in your realm of your audience here at beauty bites Is that is that people are looking at beauty, but not necessarily thinking about that everything happening on our surface is just the first indicators of what's going on underneath. So your skin integrity, but your hair, your hair follicles, tell a similar story. So there's some of the most energy demanding cells in the whole body, right? Your hair depends on mitochondria to keep growing, to be replaced. When you don't have mitochondria to power your hair, then your follicles can shrink, they thin, they don't grow as strongly. And then even gray hair, right? Gray hair is actually mitochondrial dysfunction, because gray hair is this early sign that your mitochondria can't power the pigment in your follicle, right? Because pigment production is really energy intensive, and so when you don't have the power to keep up with that, the pigment cells will burn out, in essence. And so then the new hair grows without color.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 23:28
So say that this year I've had an explosion of gray hair. I myself am like, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna have to start micro needling some topical NAD or 1m and A or something into the

Speaker 1 23:40
yeah, get your hair follicle mitochondria functioning. Yeah. I mean, it really is. It's and it's why too. Like when people are stressed, they'll notice more gray hair, because your mitochondria gets stressed, right? And so those things are very closely tied. There is, yes, a genetic component and things like that, and it's aging in general. But mitochondria are powering your hair as much as everything else.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 24:01
Spermidine in general, is great for autophagy and mitophagy. And then we talked about 1m and A. And then what about urolithin A? Where does that fit into the picture? And what is that?

Speaker 1 24:13
Yeah, so urolithin a is, it comes from pomegranate, and basically it's creating it helps to do mitochondrial biogenesis. And so you you some people, interestingly, some people can actually convert pomegranate to your lithium ion. Some people can't. There's like a test to do that. I can't remember exactly, but basically, when you have your lithin A it's giving enough of that antioxidant, anti inflammatory, support to the mitochondria to help with mitochondrial biogenesis.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 24:48
Love pomegranate. So I think that those are some things we can do with supplements as well as we know now we've heard about exercise. Is there a diet that's best for mitochondria to function cleanly? Or can. Ketones we were talking about earlier.

Speaker 1 25:02
Yeah, so I, I'll kind of speak that I have another product in the ketone world. So I've done a lot of deep dive on ketones. And so you can actually take ketones exogenously, supplementally, you also can do a keto diet, right? And why ketones are important when it comes to your mitochondria is they actually help to make ATP more efficiently than glucose. And what that means is they actually get more ATP per per molecule than glucose, for example, and you are able to skip a step in that electron transport to have less NAD needed. So there's this whole weird you know, you can start to get really deep in it, where NAD and ketones and all of it starts to connect. But at the high level, ketones are this alternative energy source to glucose that is a more readily available and more efficient energy source. Your body is built for glucose as its primary, so you're always going to need that. But when you have ketones on board, you can actually get more bang for your buck, if you will. So I really like we use a ketone called kinetic and kinetic probe, because that is the medical version of it, and that's super high doses of ketones. But exogenous ketones in general, you can get them also from obviously, doing a keto diet, so a low carb diet, but getting ketones on board will help to make more mitochondrial efficiency. I'll also throw in because it's kind of related, and it's getting a lot of hype, is creatine. So creatine is another one that partly what it's doing is acting as this backup battery for your mitochondria, so it's helping to regenerate ATP, and especially those high tissue, high demand tissues, like your brain, like your heart, like your skin. So I like to do my ketones and my creatine together. That's what I usually drink in the morning. Is my

Dr. Kay Durairaj 26:55
little how many grams are you taking of ketones or of creatine? Yeah.

Speaker 1 27:00
So I'll do, I have the creatine HCl. So it's the equivalent of, I think, five, five grams of the monohydrate. So anywhere from, I mean, we're seeing now, the studies support like up to 15 grams of creatine a day is really good for your brain and your mitochondria. I'll usually do like five grams of creatine in the morning with 10 grams of my biogenic with ketones. And then I'll do another, like, right before this podcast, did another, you know, creatine and ketones, because you want to keep them on board, right, like, all of this stuff, having it available helps just do the helps your mitochondria do the things it's supposed to do. Versus, like, blow up really, really high, really fast,

Dr. Kay Durairaj 27:43
and then you're taking 1m and A, like, kind of midday,

Speaker 1 27:47
yeah, I mean, 1m and A will have because it's a vitamin B derivative, it has that sort of very slight excitatory effect. So doing that morning midday will be fine.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 28:00
What dosage of 1m and A is usually like recommended.

Speaker 1 28:05
So we've seen fatigue support at the one capsule a day, 58 milligrams. But when you're you know the research supports up to six grams is safe and efficacious. So we usually recommend, depending on what they're what someone's trying to address anywhere from one to four caps, if somebody is, like, really sick, wow.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 28:25
Okay, that's good to know. And for spermidine, any recommended amount, or for your lithin, a any recommended amounts,

Speaker 1 28:32
I would have to honestly, go check those are ones I've been taking for so long that I haven't even looked

Dr. Kay Durairaj 28:37
in a while. Yeah, I feel like I sometimes I'll hear something on a podcast, then I'll want to go to Amazon. What's the, what's the reason we should not buy random crap on Amazon, like purity, stability wise? Tell Yeah.

Speaker 1 28:52
I mean, I think people are starting to see this space explode, right? And that's good and a lot of ways, but it also means there's a lot of people coming in to make a buck or two, and I think Amazon's just a little bit of a risky not everything. Every product on Amazon is not what it says it is, but it might be sometimes, right? So that's kind of the risk with purchasing off of Amazon, is we've seen more and more of people like just labeling, you know, salt capsules or other crap that's just fake and not what pizza it is. So if you are going to buy on Amazon, just be sure you're I don't recommend buying supplements on Amazon, but people you know will, and if you are, make sure you're buying from the actual suppliers, Amazon store. So you know how you can see, like, it says, you know, yeah, like, spermidine by spermidine life versus spermidine by Joe, 9984, like, you want to just make sure you're buying the product from the actual Amazon shop. Of. Of the supplier, yeah.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 30:02
Too many studies have shown, like, when they do a random selection of even like NAD NAD precursor products, that you can test 10 random samples, and they have very minimal amounts of what they actually state is on the vial. It's not in the vial, yeah?

Speaker 1 30:14
And like, unfortunately, you know, some of these products are expensive, because they cost a lot to make and keep the quality good. So if you're seeing something for 5x cheaper somewhere else, your flag should go up. Like is this actually what it says it is? Because fundamentally, it's maybe not even possible to produce it for as cheap as it's being sold.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 30:35
I definitely agree. And mitochondrial dysfunction can lead to chronic diseases over time. So I think that's that's something that we should also discuss, because that's basically the breakdown of the body over time and not being able to process and handle fuels correctly, leading to diabetes or leading to chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 30:59
I mean, it sounds a little cliche, but literally, every function in the body relies on your mitochondria. And so if, over time, like that story I told you know, okay, mitochondria dysfunction starts to occur because somebody's working a night shift, for example, then that turns into their skin starts to sag and their hair starts to thin. Then that turns into brain fog and fatigue. Then that can turn into neurodegenerative disease, neurovascular diseases, cardiovascular diseases, right? That when we've reached chronic disease, we're at the manifestation of years of mitochondrial dysfunction and improper clearing of damaged mitochondria and not enough biogenesis of new mitochondria to power the demands on the system we will always as we age, just by nature of fighting an uphill battle, There are more stressors and more demands on the system, so we have to work extra hard to power our mitochondria. So you really do just need to understand, like, your root cause of your disease started 15 years ago at the cellular level.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 32:16
I mean, does this get exhausting? Because, like, I feel the need to supplement all day long, and then we're still fighting the uphill battle, because aging is inevitable, and humans there's some human frailty, like we're just built with tissues that do have wear and tear, and you know, so much environmental impact every day hits our body. So like, is there a strategy that you use to motivate yourself to stay finely tuned and maybe to take things cyclically, or, you know, to not get overwhelmed and get burnt out from this idea of having to maintain no

Speaker 1 32:53
asking for a friend. Yeah, no, I think like, it's really easy to sit here and say all these things. And then me, the human like, what, what is it that I do to actually try to live this? But you're, you're dead on. I think one thing that's helped me is very much, you know, the classic 8020 like, don't feel you have to live a certain way all the time. You can enjoy letting go relaxing, because the stress of trying to do everything all the time is actually probably as detrimental to just not taking the supplement. So I think the biggest things for people to understand is hear all of this, and then pick one, pick two, that you can start to implement into your life, and maybe eventually those become a habit, and then you can add another one, right? I mean, the basics of sleep and exercise are going to get you really, really far. So don't even worry about your supplements until you at least have put a little bit of focus onto those two things. I think we overcomplicated a lot of time. And the other thing that I'll this is interesting. I just read an article today about this, but our cells are designed for purpose and function. And what we are seeing, and what this study pointed out, is that once your cells lose directiveness to their purpose and their function, that's actually where then the decay and disease start. And so that translates to at the, you know, intellectual level, at the human level, you have to have purpose and function. To indicate to yourselves, hey, you need to stay properly working and have your purpose and function. And so I think there's this, you know, greater concept, greater good concept, to this of like, what's your purpose? What are you out there trying to live for? Because that will then translate, hey, body, you need to stay alive so that you can do this thing, a

Dr. Kay Durairaj 34:53
little bit of fight or flight. Gotta be in you. Yeah, your passion and your purpose is, like, one of those big. Are longevity principles of having a community and building working for something you're passionate about. It's really important, and we see it all the time in medicine that our patients, you know, they they're 6070, they retire, and suddenly their health deteriorates because they're just not expected to go in every day or provide for the family or, you know, they don't make those meaningful connections anymore. So they get their cancer as soon as they retire. It's crazy. How often I see that?

Speaker 1 35:24
Yeah, no. I mean, we see it. I always tell people, like, don't retire. You can change. You don't have to work your same job forever.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 35:34
But yeah, literally, and I think that applies to movement, getting out of the house and like, you can't be isolated. The movement every day is so important too.

Speaker 1 35:45
Yeah, right. Like To summarize, it can be really overwhelming, and we're here diving deep into mitochondria. But your mitochondria will be happy if you move every day. You hang out with good people, you feed it, usually 80% of the time, healthy. Gotta go in the sun too. Go in the sun. Get some light. Yeah, it all comes back to the core principles, which are so much easier said than done.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 36:07
I know, right? We spend all day indoors. I don't know if I'm going to get to exercise today. I'm definitely having some carbs at my dinner. When I go to the steakhouse, I'm going to but I'll have protein, so yay,

Speaker 1 36:19
hey, yeah, just do like 10 squats after you eat, and then you'll be fine.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 36:23
I know I'm all about exercise snacks throughout the day, so I'm doing a lot of that. Actually. That's helpful to do like 10 squats, or to 10 isometric, you know, contractions, or everything when you just sit it, just doing some stuff.

Speaker 1 36:38
Yeah, I think there was a study that wasn't too long ago, where it's literally like just doing heel raises while seated, has the same, you know, glycemic reduction impact the

Dr. Kay Durairaj 36:49
soleus muscle. Like something about the soleus muscle metabolism was different and better. I have to reread that study, but it was, it had, probably has to do with different mitochondrial function in that area. Yeah, yeah, interesting. If you could envision an ideal mitochondrial friendly clinic visit 10 years from now, what does that look like?

Speaker 1 37:09
Yeah, I was thinking about this question because it sent some of the questions before, but I was trying to envision, like, what does that actually mean and translate to from the world of clinical day to day. And one of the things that came to mind is, I think we're going to move from similar to how, you know, we once did cholesterol testing, and then we realized, well, actually, we need to just do comprehensive cardiovascular panels, right? I think we're at the precipice of that with cellular function and mitochondrial function. So instead of just like way vague wellness metrics, I think we'll move to cellular diagnostics. And it's hard right now, a lot of it is in the research realm, right? Like being able to actually measure the health of your cell. So we use a lot of proxies look at things like lactate or inflammation markers. But I think in you know, five to 10 years, we will unlock some of that, so that the clinical experience is that we actually can start to measure how our cells are performing, how our mitochondria are performing, and then use all these therapies we just talked about, and you can see, hey, how does Dr Kay's mitochondria respond to red light versus 1m and A, and then maybe 1m and A is going to be the thing for you that's more important, or well is also. But you know what I mean?

Dr. Kay Durairaj 38:30
I mean we already, we already have, and I feel like in my office four or five years ago, I was testing people to see how their cytochromes were functioning, because pharmacologically, like certain drugs go through different cytochrome channels, and your body not may not be equipped to process or handle and metabolize them. So that kind of testing is already available. And I think you're absolutely right. We're going to have to have metrics to measure like, how are your mitochondrial functioning? And there are people even born with mitochondrial disease, actually. And one of the mitochondrial peptides that just got FDA approved, I think, is SS 31 for Barth syndrome. What do you know about mitochondrial peptides?

Speaker 1 39:13
Yeah, no, you mentioned SS 31 and that, I mean, it's like you just said a couple weeks ago about FDA approval for a mitochondrial disease, the mitochondrial peptides are sort of the next you've got exercise, sleep, light, then you've got your supplements, and then you can really dive in with some heavy hitter mitochondrial peptides. So SS 31 it's also called a lampretide, and it's actually binding to what's called cardiolipin inside the mitochondrial membrane, and so this helps to stabilize that structure. So remember how I said like the cristae can get really loose and unfolded SS 31 can help to stabilize that make those connections, those folds tight enough to get the electron transport chain to have enough. Proton motive force to build ATP. So it's actually working to heal the mitochondrial membrane, which is pretty cool. There's another peptide that gets talked about inside of the mitochondrial world, called human in it, yeah, so that it was originally looked at for neurodimension, neuro diseases and dementias, and had some interesting support, probably because it turned the mitochondria on for the brain, but it's produced naturally from the mitochondrial DNA. So mitochondria have their own DNA, like I said, and the human end, can protect the cell from oxidative stress and then helps regulate that cellular metabolism in the mitochondria as well. Interesting.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 40:39
So have you done? Are you taking any myocardial peptides? Are you friends who are doing that when the longevity space

Speaker 1 40:48
very much? So definitely they are expensive. They haven't. It'll be interesting to see what this FDA approval of SS 31 does, for better or worse, in terms of our accessibility and cost. It's kind of always. You never know exactly how it will translate to the more compounder clinical longevity world. I haven't personally done any other of those just because they are expensive. And for me, at my stage in life, I'm focusing on the other stuff because I don't have anything critically that I want to fix with my mitochondria. But if I had the

Dr. Kay Durairaj 41:21
gray hair yet, no gray hairy had a couple,

Speaker 1 41:25
it just started. So maybe I should start doing SS 31 No, I think it's Dr yours talks. She actually gave a talk not that long ago about this gets to, you know, the intuitive cell knowledge, doing these things on a system that aligns with the seasons. And so like going from, you know, a growth phase in spring, where you're focused on turning mTOR up, building collagen, building muscle, and then maybe in the winter, in the fall, coming down, building doing more restore and repair. So you could do SS 31 as part of those seasonal repair stages. And then that's kind of a way to manage the you don't have to do it all day, every day, forever, because then it'd be too expensive. Interesting.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 42:11
Yeah, I wonder. I mean, for sure, it works where people have membrane deficiencies, but I wonder how healthy person is going to feel taking that they feel like supercharged or not? Yeah.

Speaker 1 42:20
I mean, it would be, I know, I think a lot of the people at the clinic have at blood or longevity Institute where I was, have done it, and we have a lot of patients who have, you know, seen it work really well. I've seen it mainly have the most, you know, anecdotally, large impact for those people who have severe mitochondria dysfunction. So people like long covid people or ALS things like that, where it's really they need to turn their mitochondria on.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 42:49
Yeah, exactly. I think that's going to be the wave of the future. Yeah.

Speaker 1 42:55
No, it is. It's exciting that we know enough to be able to actually address these at that level of cellular fixing, right? Like that, we have migrated all the way from organ systems to cell systems to mitochondrial systems, exactly.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 43:14
Well, this has been a pleasure. I feel like we did a really great deep dive on a topic that I don't know if people know enough about, and hopefully this is going to be eye opening and really make you think about the state of your mitochondria, because honestly, that's going to change the trajectory of how you age if you have powerful mitochondria.

Speaker 1 43:32
Yeah, beauty batteries, right. They are. They're the key to stay young and

Dr. Kay Durairaj 43:36
youthful as we help longevity everything. Well, where can people find you, Courtney, if they want to reach out or ask more questions or try longevity launch labs,

Speaker 1 43:46
yeah, so you can contact me directly at Courtney at longevity launch labs.com, you can check out our website, as Dr Kay said in the beginning, we are both A product, cellular products. So cellular supplements working to bring this science to the day to day person, and then we also do other education and things for practitioners focused on longevity medicine and Cellular Medicine. You can follow me on Instagram, follow longevity launch labs on Instagram, and definitely reach out if you want to talk mitochondria, because I'm all here for it.

Dr. Kay Durairaj 44:23
Well, I love it. That's it for now. Guys, don't forget to find me on my instagram. It's Beauty by Dr Kay, D, R, K, a, y, doing amazing things with people's faces and health, wealth and longevity as well. I know you guys are going to want to try my new skin longevity line, which has all these amazing peptides for collagen growth. It has two peptides for collagen, one for elastin, glutathione, GH, K, copper, and even ingredients for pigment control, like transexamic acid as well as NAD precursors. So it's all for it's one of. It's the first of its kind. Actually. Skin longevity kit. So excited for you guys to try that you can find it at Katie skin dot shop. That's it for now, guys, stay beautiful. You