Issue Date: September 28, 2003
How our bodies generate energy
Feeling energetic? Thank your mitochondria.
By Devin Zatorski
The inner walls of the mitochondria are coated with energy-making chemical reactors.
In a feedback loop, the pituitary and the thyroid regulate energy production.
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"That's where energy happens," says Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D., a leading researcher on energy and fatigue.
The mitochondria -- kidney-shaped balloons inside your cells -- are furnaces that churn out energy in a complex biochemical process, part of a feedback loop that researchers are just beginning to manipulate. "For the first time, medicine is learning how to stoke the energy furnaces by giving them what they need biochemically," says Teitelbaum, who directs the Annapolis Research Center for Effective Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Therapies.
Here's how it works:
"There's a slow fire in the mitochondria that takes calories and burns them in a slow, stepwise progression to create energy," Teitelbaum says. The mitochondria's inner walls are coated with energy-making chemical reactors that take fuel and pull it apart, electron by electron. Result: compound ATP, also called "energy dollars."
Energy production requires a steady stream of nutrients. "If you have a furnace, you've got to stoke it," Teitelbaum says. Without enough magnesium or B vitamins, for example, the mitochondria cannot generate energy needed for healthy cell function.
But the mitochondria's furnaces need to be turned on. The switch is flipped by hormones produced by the thyroid gland in the throat. The thyroid is told to act by hormones secreted by the pituitary -- a pea-sized gland deep in the brain. And regulating it all is the hypothalamus, a walnut-sized gland just in front of the pituitary.
So, if the mitochondria are energy furnaces, you can think of the thyroid as a thermostat and the hypothalamus as the "main fuse" for the system.
Here's where the mighty microscopic mitochondria reassert themselves in the power loop. If stress overloads your body's energy needs and the mitochondria can't churn out enough supply, the hypothalamus "blows its fuse" and shuts down, the energy-making loop comes undone and chronic fatigue symptoms intensify.
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Dr. Tedd on "social drugs"
By Tedd Mitchell, M.D.,
Contributing Editor
Beware of short-term energy boosters -- or "social drugs" -- that worsen your problems in the long term. Overuse can upset sleep patterns or make you sleep more lightly, causing you to feel worse in the morning and reach for even more stimulants.
Caffeine. Some people take in enough of this stimulant to wire Mr. Snuffleupagus. I tell patients to limit daily intake to two 8-ounce servings of coffee, tea or caffeinated colas.
Alcohol. If you imbibe, shoot for no more than four to six drinks a week. One drink is 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of liquor. At 14 drinks a week or four drinks per sitting, you become "at risk" for bigger problems than just a lack of energy.
Nicotine. There are absolutely no benefits to nicotine, so abstain. Get the help you need to get yourself off this chemical.
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