#42 All About the Mitochondria, Aging, Disease, and Energy with Dr. Lee Know

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Midi-chlorians are a microscopic life form that resides within all living cells.

Dr. Lee Know (0:04)

For humans, the more mitochondria we have, the healthier we are, and the more energy we have to carry about our daily activities. When we look at the damage to the mitochondria, it really is oxidative stress. And where does that oxygen comes from? It's from breathing. Antioxidants might not necessarily always be the best thing, because you're reducing that beneficial oxidative stress that allows your body to adapt and get stronger. It is incredibly important to make sure that dysfunctional cells are removed from the body when they're supposed to be, because if that doesn't happen, they can stick around and continue to divide and that's the start of cancer.

Siim Land (0:41)

Body, Mind Empowerment.

SPEAKER_4 (0:43)

Get stronger, faster, smarter, quicker, friendlier, more helpful, more driven.

Siim Land (0:49)

Everything the body needs.

SPEAKER_4 (0:50)

Control your mind.

Siim Land (0:54)

Welcome to the Body, Mind Empowerment Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land and our guest today is Dr. Lee Know from Canada. Dr. Lee is a licensed naturopathic doctor who's received several rewards in medicine. He has held positions as medical advisor in companies and he serves on the editorial advisory board for Canada's most read natural health magazine. His latest book Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine talks about a new way of looking at disease, chronic illness, aging and life itself from a completely revolutionary perspective. Dr. Lee, I'm so glad that you could make it to the show and welcome.

Dr. Lee Know (1:32)

Thank you, my pleasure.

Siim Land (1:35)

Can you tell us about your background and what motivated you to write a book about mitochondria?

Dr. Lee Know (1:44)

So as you just mentioned, I'm a naturopathic doctor by by education and I'm not sure what that means for you in Europe and your audience. But in Canada, we're seen as primary care physicians, so very similar to medical doctors. So our training is the same.

But at the time when I developed this interest for mitochondria, I was actually consulting for a company that did a lot of business with a nutrient called coenzyme Q10, which I'm sure you're aware of.

And this particular brand had a well-researched version that was used in hospitals and other medical clinics. And at that time, there was a lot of interest in using coenzyme Q10 for women with infertility. And this was based out of some rat studies that showed potential benefits for these women. And one of the things that started happening was that a lot of these fertility clinics started to use coenzyme Q10. So there was one particular clinic that wanted me to come in and do a presentation for their doctors and nurses to help them understand why they need to recommend coenzyme Q10 to their female patients.

And we learned about mitochondria in school, even back in high school and including medical school, but we never really understood the importance of it. And it was in my preparation for this presentation that I really started to dig deep and not only understand why coenzyme Q10 is so great for these women and that again boils down to mitochondrial function, but it just opened up so much more where I started to realize that dysfunctional mitochondria is linked to so many different things. And again, because this is something that I didn't really learn in school, we really touched upon mitochondria at a very basic level. I just felt that it was something that needed to be shared. So one of the things I did notice is that there is a lot of good resources out there, but there didn't seem to be one comprehensive resource that looked at the various aspects of mitochondria, including the evolutionary biology part, the health conditions associated with mitochondria, and then of course the therapy part. So I felt there needed to be some resource out there that can pull everything together.

Siim Land (4:00)

Yeah, I totally agree with you in this sense that you collected all of the necessary information about the mitochondria and how it relates to disease into this one compact book format, and I really enjoyed it. What I also liked about was how you opened up the introduction of the book with a paragraph from Star Wars, and you explained how these things called the midi-chlorians are these components of the force, and without them life wouldn't exist.

SPEAKER_1 (4:32)

Midi-chlorians are a microscopic life form that resides within all living cells.

Siim Land (4:37)

So are you basically trying to say that these midi-chlorians are like the same as the mitochondria or the equivalent to mitochondria?

Dr. Lee Know (4:45)