Dr. Casey Means

It's telling me that biochemically, I'm actually releasing energy stores from my liver, glucose, to fight some threat that I wasn't really aware of.

So we definitely understand there's this link here, but it's certainly not made its way into clinical practice.

So the way I think about it is that what we know about the cells and especially the mitochondria is that the mitochondria are more than the powerhouses of the cell.

They actually are

a part of the cell that is constantly tracking resources and threats and are basically modulating energy resources based on that.

And the threats can be anything.

They can be a virus.

They can be... And this is all coordinated through this thing called the cell danger response.

It can be a virus.

It can be a toxin in the environment.

It can be lack of micronutrients for the electron transport chain that it needs to do its function.

It can also be psychological threats because, of course, our psychological milieu translates through nerves and hormones and neurotransmitters and our microbiome to affect our cellular biology throughout our whole body.

Our cells hear every single thought that we're thinking through biochemistry.

And when a cell and a mitochondria are getting the message that there is a threat or something to be afraid of, they are going to change metabolic function towards defense, alarm, threat response, and away from repair, homeostasis, building, essentially thriving.

So, and I think what's really maybe the most unnatural thing about our modern world, you know, the food of course is unnatural, 70% is ultra processed, but we also have this device in our hands.

literally with us all the time, streaming fear-inducing media into our brains and eyeballs every waking moment of the day if we let it.

So we're glued to our screens and our devices.

And

Right now, essentially, the traumas and fears of 8 billion people all over an entire globe are now ours to process.

And our cells and our mitochondria, there is no escaping it.