Why Mitochondria Health is so Important for Fertility
Warren discuss mitochondria and fertility with Sarah Clark from Get Pregnant Naturally.
Mitochondria are the only source of energy for the egg.
When we support the mitochondria we can improve egg quality.
On this podcast you’ll learn
- The exact steps we can take to improve mitochondria health.
- Which toxins negatively impact the mitochondria.
- Which supplements are recommended to support the mitochondria.
Get Pregnant Naturally with Sarah Clark – Transcipt
Welcome to Get Pregnant Naturally, where functional medicine and natural fertility solutions will help you get pregnant and have your baby.
Sarah Clark: Hi everyone, I’m Sarah Clark and my mission is to inspire, motivate, and empower you. Most of all, I want you to wake up. So with functional medicine we can discover what causes infertility and eventually reverse the condition. Today I’m excited to welcome Warren Cargal to the podcast and we’re digging into the mitochondria and why it’s so important for your fertility. Warren is a licensed acupuncturist, herbalist and clinical director at Acupuncture Atlanta, and he’s practiced Chinese medicine over 20 years in the fields of infertility and chronic disease conditions. And he maintains an active clinical practice in Atlanta, Georgia. Warren’s interested in the integration of classical Chinese medicine with modern scientific study and evidence based protocols. He spent hundreds of post graduate hours in Chinese herbology, nutrition and endocrine education.
Sarah Clark: Through work at his clinic, he recognized three fundamental factors that drive aging and age related diseases of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease and cancer: shallow breathing, excessive consumption of calories and carbohydrates and lack of exercise. He is the author of Your Mitochondria: Key to Health and Longevity, which is based on the latest research on herbal isolates, nutraceuticals, and presents approaches for correcting these three factors to reverse age related disease. You can check out his website at themitobook.com. And before we jump into today’s show, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button on iTunes or wherever you’re listening to this to make sure you never miss an episode. Awesome. So welcome to the podcast Warren, excited to have you here.
Warren Cargal: Thank you Sarah. I’m excited to be talking about mitochondria.
Sarah Clark: Yeah, exactly. I’d like to see exactly what that is and share that with our listeners. So yeah, if you could just share about your story and how you came to do this work.
Warren Cargal: So I’ll just jump right in then. So I’m an acupuncturist and we have an active clinic here in Atlanta where we predominantly focus on fertility issues. So the reason how this evolved for me about the mitochondria was that a number … A couple of years ago, we started noticing that there were issues coming up and those issues kind of like were centered around the … We would be helpful in getting the woman’s menses normalized, her cycle normalized, and then from there she would get pregnant and then within a month or two the pregnancy would fail. And so from there I started looking at what’s going on here, you know what I mean? Why is this occurring? And turns out that within that first three months of pregnancy, this single cell turns into millions of cells. So what that implies is fundamentally a tremendous amount of energy needed to drive growth. And that kind of led me to the mitochondria to start looking at them. Which is, the mitochondria are what drive the growth within that first month of pregnancy.
Sarah Clark: Okay.
Warren Cargal: That make sense?
Sarah Clark: Yeah. Yeah. Well, let’s just dig into exactly what, yeah, you kind of explained it there a little bit, but what exactly are the mitochondria and why is it so important?
Warren Cargal: Well, so we’re going to use the way-back machine for a second here. We’re going to go back millions of years. And at one point in time the planet was covered with all these single cell organisms. And the limiting factor there was gravity. So a single cell organism could only grow so big and then it would collapse due to the gravity. The membrane just would collapse. So it’s not quite clear how this happened, but one or single cell organism ingested another organism. And you know, the dialogue was kind of like this, “Look, don’t digest me. We’ll make a deal, I’ll supply the energy if you supply the nutrients, the nutrients coming from the outside environment and everything.” And so that’s how this specialization occurred, and that’s what allowed us to move from single cell organisms into multicell, highly specialized organisms, that there was this first opportunity for specialization to occur. And, you know, that specialization is in this context is production of energy. And so the takeaway here is what you realize is that mitochondria, all of the mitochondria within your body are symbiotes, symbiotic relationships, they have their own DNA. So that’s kind of interesting.
Warren Cargal: But the most amazing thing is that the mitochondria are solely passed down through the female line. So you know, there’s this place where, you know, there’s recent research that came out, which looked at, you know, if there is a mitochondrial Eve. And they’ve gone back like maybe 6 or 7,000 years. And you know, there’s probably more than one mitochondria Eve, but … So it’s all solely passed down through the female and then here’s the best part, so for comparison, in your skin cell you may have like a hundred mitochondria and they’re producing ATP for the cellular functions, right? Whereas like a heart muscle cell may have like between 5 to 8,000 mitochondria, all producing energy 24 hours a day to drive the expansion and contraction of the heart, right?
Warren Cargal: However, when we look at a female egg, what we find is there’s like 100,000 mitochondria in the female egg. I mean, it’s just like, you know, this phenomenal load of mitochondria producing ATP. And those mitochondria are solely for the function of driving this tremendous growth that occurs in these first three months after implantation. So, it’s kind of like, all hail the queen, the queen egg. I mean, she’s, you know, phenomenal.
Sarah Clark: And so given that with the 100,000 and the egg, and so then going into fertility conception, how does that work and why is that so important?
Warren Cargal: Well, in fertility conception, the issue … So there’s a couple of issues that come up here that have to be kind of sorted through. So the first issue is at birth, a female will have about a million eggs and then somewhere around puberty, you know, these eggs start maturing. And that maturing process, I mean like there’s this ocean of eggs, you know, if you want to imagine it. And at some point once ovulation starts and a signal goes down into this ocean of eggs and a couple of eggs are chosen, a cohort of eggs.
Warren Cargal: And then here’s another interesting part, they go through a whole maturing process for a year and they’re under various stages of influence where they grow, some of them, they don’t do well. And finally within the last 90 days of this one year maturing process they come under the influence of the steroidal hormones. What that really kind of implies there is like the mitochondria are under the influence of whatever’s going on with the body during that course of that year. And you can affect those mitochondria, improve the quality of the mitochondria, improve their performance, their output of ATP, you know, there’s things that we’ve looked at that you can do that will improve their performance.
Warren Cargal: And some of the things you can start today, right after this podcast. I mean, they are really simple things. And then other things would be supplements and herbs and those would be suggestions we would make for a woman who kind of is under a lot of pressure, who’s feeling a lot of pressure. So we here in the clinic, we get various stages of women who are just starting to want to explore all the ways to people, you know, they’re aged, they’re getting kind of up in age, and they’ve been through a couple of rounds of IVF unsuccessfully. So they’re under a lot of pressure and stress. And so at that level we’re not going to be able to say, okay, look, you’ve got a year here to work on this because they really don’t. And that would really drive the stress even more.
Sarah Clark: Right. And it’s sort of well it takes you 90 days, but sometimes they say a hundred days for the egg to renew itself. So you’re saying that that whole year is really important. But obviously … Yeah, we have a six months couples coaching program and we use functional testing to help, it’s typically for the woman to conceive, and then if there’s a male factor fertility we can look at that as well. But yeah, and it doesn’t matter really how old the woman is, 28, 38 everyone panics. And to roll this bus, you know, back this thing up and slow it down, could seem overwhelming. But the fact there’s things you can do to impact the quality of your eggs.
Sarah Clark: And a lot of times people are coming to see me because I’ve shared my story about premature ovarian failure and then a lot of people either have POF or they have low ovarian reserve or they’ve been told, sorry, you’re only option, you know, are donor eggs when meanwhile there’s … And they may have been through typically probably the same as you, like they’ve been through, you know, failed IVFs and all these things and you know cycles have been canceled and they’ve been told there’s nothing else you can do. Meanwhile, there’s definitely things you can at the minimum would be those 90 days. What’s your take?
Warren Cargal: Well I mean in 90 days is tight. And sometimes that’s what we have to work with, and we just do the best we can there. But I mean, you know, it’s like with that caveat, look, you have to understand, so we’re already dealing with eggs that have been in this process for a number of months and you know, it’s difficult at that level.
Sarah Clark: And how are you seeing how the mitochondria issues would affect your fertility patients? What do you think?
Warren Cargal: Well, so here’s some additional information for you. So what I’m going to do now is just tell you the four things that you could start today and start doing which will affect your mitochondria. So the first thing is that, what we find is that mitochondria are just like little engines, molecular engines and they’re producing energy. And the thing is they require oxygen, you know, just like your car engine. And so what do you think the effect is of sitting at your desk all day is on this oxygen?
Sarah Clark: Yeah, sedentary lifestyle like so many of us, that standard western lifestyle, right? It’s not getting the oxygen.
Warren Cargal: Yeah. So to put it in terms, you’re sitting at your desk and there’s hypoxia occurring. Hypoxia is low oxygen content. And that predominantly is being driven because you’re just sitting, you’re shallow breathing, but the upper third of your lungs. So the mitochondria prefer oxygen. I mean, they don’t prefer oxygen, they demand oxygen. And if you’re not going to do that, I mean that just, you know, let’s see how to put this. So within the mitochondria, there’s what’s called an electron transport chain. And really this energy is totally amazing, but this energy is being produced from the level of electrons. It’s stripping off electrons and putting in little dams and then building the charges. And then at some point it makes us ATP, and it’s a really heavily charged molecule there that delivers a lot of energy.
Warren Cargal: So within this electron, I mean within this dam, this electron transport chain, within the mitochondria, you know what starts happening with low oxygen content, these electrons begin to break free and they are highly reactive and they’ll punch holes in the mitochondria membranes and they can damage the surrounding area. So this is kind of the underlying driving force around inflammatory processes within the body, this low oxygen content. So that’s the first thing and that’s a really important thing. So just, you know, in the context of getting up, walking around, if you’re in your office, I understand you’ve got to be there working, but you know, somehow moving around and breathing, moving and breathing.
Sarah Clark: Yeah. It’s interesting how they’re bringing in those stand up desks now to offices.
Warren Cargal: I know, I saw it. I was like, oh that looks really cool. Because I unfortunately sit at my desk a lot and I was like, hey there I could do that.
Sarah Clark: Yeah. My husband has that at his desk. I know people do those stability balls where you kind of, I always think I’d fall right off them. Yeah. So to keep your, just to be … And even setting a timer to be aware, wait a minute, I just sat for two hours, maybe I need to take break after an hour, do a little stretching, walk around-
Warren Cargal: Breathing. Stretching and breathing. Yeah, so-
Sarah Clark: And that belly breathing too.
Warren Cargal: Right. That’s a very simple thing someone could start today. So the second thing is, and this kind of couples with breathing, is exercise. And I’m not talking about strenuous exercise, I’m just talking about mild exercise like walking or biking. And what that drives as biogenesis was just production of more mitochondria and it also fires up the mitochondria to kind of clear out the debris. And I’ll tell you what I mean by debris on this third one. But, that’s really important. You know, even just walking, moving your arms while you’re walking, breathing, that’s going really improve the performance of your mitochondria. And it’s a really simple thing whether it’s like 20 minutes a day. So if you’re doing strenuous exercise, that’s fine, you know, I’m not suggesting stopping that. But really for the mitochondria’s point of view, it’s just some daily movement to move things at the level of the mitochondria.
Sarah Clark: Yeah. And we look at exercise, if it’s, you know, if you are, you know … Right now for fertility, maybe training for the marathon is not thought the best idea. You know, how do you feel the next day if after you go for a run? Are you dragging the next day? Just, you know, crawling around in so much pain, maybe you overdid it. Whereas, yeah, you’re suggesting, gentle exercise. So walking and biking and just really moving your body to help the mitochondria.
Warren Cargal: Right. So, I know probably a lot of people are kind of like me. I mean, I came from a background where I was highly athletic and I’m still athletic, you know, except I ride around on my bike and stuff like that. But, you know, it’s kind of a shift in mindset, not be at that level of competitiveness and just, yeah, okay, I’m here, I’m enjoying it, right? So the third thing then is food. So here what we’re suggesting is caloric restriction and we’re suggesting moving from let’s say that you’re at 2,500 calories a day, that you would move down to like 2,000 or 2,100. So, I mean, just a small reduction.
Warren Cargal: But back to address my comment about debris. So here’s what happens if there’s excessive nutrients. So we recall our original discussion about the single cell organisms and what the agreement was, you know, I’m going to provide the nutrients and the mitochondria provide the ATP. So if there’s excessive nutrients, those just kind of get backed up in the mitochondria and they get backed up in the form of the electrons that’s been stripped away from the nutrients when they’re delivered. And these nutrients are highly reactive and they form something called reactive oxygen species, which are just like toxins or radioactivity. They can damage the DNA within the mitochondria, they can pull in the mitochondria and they can cause inflammation in the surrounding area. So caloric restriction, and you know, hopefully that’s understood that was a mild caloric restriction.
Warren Cargal: But the fourth thing associated with this in the context of caloric restrictions, and this really kind of rumbles, this fourth thing rumbles throughout the whole body. So the mitochondria’s primary source of a nutritive energy or is fuel, so to speak, is either sugars or fats, right? And it can use either one interchangeably. But for an example, for every unit of sugar, you’re going to intake into the mitochondria, you’re going to get two units of ATP out of it, right? That’s pretty simple to understand. However, for every unit of fat that you put in it, you’re going to get like 32 units of ATP out of it, which is phenomenal as far as, you know, if you’re looking at energy. And so to bring it back to the queen who has those hundred thousand mitochondria there, what you want is energy, right? You want energy to drive the vision process of growing this new child embryo.
Warren Cargal: So that’s such a primary issue there for people that may come in, especially, you know, they’re stressed women who, you know, it’s just like sugar is an easy place to go to. In the context of this cohort of eggs that are going through a maturing process, what you see in this ocean is, excessive sugars begin to thicken the membrane of the egg. And so, you just mentioned a couple of things going, you know, like where the ovaries are non responsive or the FSH is high or things like that. That’s generally due to the egg membrane is being thickened. Does that make sense? So the sugars are just a really big issue and that’s, you know … When we start working with a female patient, that’s the first thing we’re going to be looking at is just kind of really getting a good understanding what the dietary issues are. And then the other issue concurrent to that is a lot of women aren’t eating a lot too. So, you know, that’s a big problem too because you’re back to an energy. I mean, we’re saying caloric reduction, but then we see on the other side of the equation, there’s just such a fundamental reduction in it that you get. It causes the mitochondria to become nonresponsive, they begin to die off, there’s all kind of little side effects occurring because there’s just lack of nutrients.
Sarah Clark: Okay. So we’re looking at oxygen and we’re looking at exercise, diet, you look at caloric restrictions of 2,500 calories down to 2,100. We have a slightly different philosophy on that where we look at instead of counting calories, we count chemicals, but-
Warren Cargal: Chemicals like what? What do you mean by that?
Sarah Clark: Just like chemicals in your food. So kind of are you eating organic, are you’re eating like whole foods and we also take it a step further by looking at potential food sensitivities and are you eating the right diet for you? Like-
Warren Cargal: Like bisphenol A and things like that and like other-
Sarah Clark: Yeah. Exactly the plastics and yeah. And so when you say diet, is it a specific diet you’re looking at or are you just like, you know what, just reduce your calories. I just want to understand that one.
Warren Cargal: Well, I mean, you know, so here we have someone who’s starting all stressed up. Yeah, that was one of the things we really learned very early on, like if someone likes a cup of coffee or something. And if they want half and half in their coffee because that’s part of their morning ritual, we’re going to say, okay, no problem, right? But what we just try to do is that you eat smart, I mean it’s like a Mediterranean type diet. When I say fats I mean, you know, it’s like fats are like olive oils, avocados or coconut oil, fats from fish, even fats from red meat. I mean, you know, it’s really simple, mitochondria like fats and they produce a lot more energy if you’re giving them fats.
Sarah Clark: Absolutely. Yeah. And you can check out episode number 16 on our podcast where we talk about to eat the right kinds of fats because we’ve been in this, you know, fat free craze where I did the whole thing where having my fat free yogurt and all this stuff, afraid of fat and oh my goodness, it’s going to make me fat. But yeah, healthy fats are important to make hormones and the baby’s brain is made of fat. So you’re saying a fat, will then make 32 ATP. So, which really then is important for the mitochondria and the mitochondria health. And then sugar, processed sugar is something that’s really not recommended. Is that what you’re saying?
Warren Cargal: Well sugar and carbohydrates period. Carbohydrates are long chain sugars which convert to sugars. And what you have to keep in mind is we talk about infertility in the book, but the primary focus of the book was on the age related diseases. And the age related diseases are like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neuro degeneration like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, cancer and arthritis. And the fundamental statement about cancer, it’s like, it’s a fast growing, aggressive organism in your body and it requires energy to do that. And generally, you know, it goes with a process of glycolysis in the body where it’s taking, I mean, it will drive itself off of sugars at a really inefficient process. It creates a lot of toxins in the body. It doesn’t care, you know, it’s just growth-orientated. So you know, at that level you definitely want to start moving away from sugars and start ingesting fats, you know. It makes sense-
Sarah Clark: Yeah. And I have seen things talking about breast cancer. And then they were doing a get together for a breast cancer support and then they were having wine, which I’m like, that’s a lot of sugar. What are we doing? Oh my goodness. Obviously looking at your sugar intake and moving away from processed sugar, obviously there’s maple syrup or honey but then, yeah, depending on how, if you do have a blood sugar issue, which that can be a whole other issue. So are you saying completely cutting out carbs and processed sugar? Just what are you saying there?
Warren Cargal: Well, it’s again, you know … So like in Chinese medicine it’s an approach of, there’s a fundamental statement there about it being a life of moderation, right? So you know, if you’re going to smoke a cigarette occasionally, okay. Or if you’re going to have some spicy food, okay. Or if you’re going to have some, you know, the glass of wine occasionally, you know, we’re going to be okay with that. But if it’s daily consumption, then that’s a problem for us. So, I mean it’s just a statement of moderation is what we’re implying here and we’re suggesting. And we have to really be careful because like some of the things you mentioned, like maple syrup or the honeys or you know what I mean? Some people have a sweet tooth.
Sarah Clark: Yeah. Me. That’s me.
Warren Cargal: It can be a slippery slope. If we could say there’s no problem. You know, have some honey sometime. have a piece of chocolate sometime. I mean, okay, that’s fine if you can hold that space. But if it’s going to be difficult for you than probably it’s best just to say, abstain completely.
Sarah Clark: Go cold turkey. I remember in the beginning when I was doing elimination diet, I literally, because the one I was doing is for candida and I could do, well actually looking back, I don’t know why, because I shouldn’t have been doing it with maple syrup, but I had such a sweet tooth that I remember like licking the maple syrup out of the freaking bottle and I’m like, okay, there’s a problem here. Yeah, we’re addicted to sugar, right? It’s what? Eight times more addictive than cocaine. Okay. So explain the blighted ovum or placenta insufficiency and how that’s related here to mitochondria?
Warren Cargal: Well, I mean, it’s all about energy, you know. And so if we’re talking, you know, blighted ovum and then that’s the failure to deliver nutrients into the open and mechanical issues where that’s occurring, that can be one place. But generally in Chinese medicine from that perspective, I mean, you know, there’s blood and Qi, which are the primary underlying moving forces of life. And so the mitochondria are just going to provide that energy for all those processes. I just think a lot of people when they hear about what we’re discussing here … I mean our view of our bodies is essentially this, you know, solid mass, with a mouth and our butt and you know, this cavity through us where nutrients pass through. But I mean there’s just a world going on and at the molecular level there’s all these processes going on that fundamentally require energy. And if you’re not supplying that energy, then those problems are going to surface on the physical level, so to speak. Is that clear for you?
Sarah Clark: Yeah. And so looking again back to the oxygen, the exercise, the food and also the diet, so those sort of things are crucial to ensure that your mitochondria are in good shape.
Warren Cargal: Yeah. So like back to the placenta insufficiency or things like that. I mean that’s a blood statement and that’s a statement fundamentally about nutrients and quality of blood i.e. oxygen. So that’s how we view that. And so we’re really keen on, you know, going to movement and breathing, oxygenating the body. You know, maybe we would be using herbs to help support the lung function. Because I mean some people in their childhoods or something like that, they may have had asthma or they still may be asthmatic. And so those, you know, kind of imply certain things, which you have to kind of follow the thread down to kind of unravel this naughty little problem.
Sarah Clark: I guess we’ll talk a little bit more about herbs at the end and supplements I think. So what do you think causes the mitochondria to become dysfunctional and explain that for us?
Warren Cargal: Well, I mean, those four things I just identified cause the mitochondria to become fundamentally dysfunctional.
Sarah Clark: And I have been doing those.
Warren Cargal: So let’s just kind of a take it through like as we age, you know, for some of us our knees get a little arthritic, right? Or painful, we’re no longer able to exercise. But when you just take the information and just discuss, I mean, the knees have chondrocytes without the joints and within the joints there’s chondrocytes which you know make all this stuff for the knee joint and synovial fluids and all that. And those are driven by mitochondria. And so they’re also already in existing because of the distance from the lungs and the heart. They’re already existing within a hypoxia, low oxygen environment. So here’s the process, we’re sitting in our desk, we’re not breathing or we’re shallow breathing. Also when you’re sitting, what’s happening is your pelvis gets tilted, which tightens those muscles under your legs and so you’re further restricting nutrients into the knee joints, right? So you do this for a number of years and what do you think’s going to start happening to your knees?
Sarah Clark: So many people are getting knee replacements now as they age.
Warren Cargal: I know, It’s like, okay, well I’ll just get my knees replaced, but you know, and it’s the same thing with your neck and your shoulders. And what’s happening when you’re sitting there kind of hunched over, looking at your computer, shallow breathing, I mean, you’re going to get tightness there and you’re going to begin to notice pain occurring in the shoulder joints or the peripheral joints and all those things like that.
Sarah Clark: Yeah, as you were saying that I sat up. I’m all hunched over, I’m like six foot. I know that it’s kind of, sometimes I’ve got to squeeze myself to get out of this desk. But yeah, to really be aware of your body and kind of what it needs there, so they become dysfunctional, like you said, with this sedentary lifestyle.
Warren Cargal: Right. And then what you begin to see is what we call the age related diseases where there’s a progression of degenerative diseases occurring for you.
Sarah Clark: How would a woman strengthen her mitochondria to prepare for conception?
Warren Cargal: Well, the easiest solution is like, you know, if you’re at that stage where you guys or you and your partner are talking about conception, that you know, you give consideration. Okay, let’s give sufficient time here. Well lets begin to kind of sort this out. But then let’s say that for whatever reason, your lifestyle, it’s been hectic. I mean, stress has its own dysregulating effects on the body also. Specifically we see that reflected in the menses and your cycle dysregulation as far as your luteal phase and your dysregulation there. So from that point, if you start planning it and using the four things I’ve just mentioned, you know … But if you’re in the latter stage group, then there are four supplements that you really want to begin to immediately take to help your mitochondria. And they’re not herbs, but they’re supplements. So we talked about the electron energy transport chain within the mitochondria. That’s a little fascinating, it’s almost like a quantum effect machine going on within your body where electrons, you know, it’s all being stripped away.
Warren Cargal: And then we talked about fats. So, L-carnitine is really one of the few things that moves fats into the mitochondria. And generally what we do there is we would suggest like 1,000 to 2,000 milligrams of L-carnitine, which is in a liquid, you know, a lot of the body builders use it. And so you would put like a tablespoon of that in a glass of water and have it one to two times a day. Then the other thing that’s really important, so we mentioned the effects of these free radicals like the electrons get loose within the mitochondria and wreck things. And we also mentioned the reactive oxygen species which are similar, they create a lot of toxins. So what the mitochondria use to repair the membranes is called D-ribose and D-ribose is a five carbon sugar which specifically is used to repair membranes. So you would do that, and that’s in a powder, and you’d do about a quarter tablespoon of that, that’s about 500 milligrams. And you just put it in the water with your L-carnitine. And-
Sarah Clark: Sorry, did you say, D-ribose?
Warren Cargal: Yeah D-ribose.
Sarah Clark: D-ribose, okay, great. So L-carnitine and then D-ribose, Okay?
Warren Cargal: Yep.
Sarah Clark: A quarter table spoon?
Warren Cargal: Yep. And on the book website, themitobook.com. And at the bottom you’ll see this protocol outline, which is called the basic mitochondria protocol. So D-ribose for the membranes. So then, the next thing, and this one is for people who are having cardiovascular issues, I mean this particular supplement is just a fundamental, kind of like a constitutional supplement that you want to take. So here it is, it’s CoQ10. And CoQ10, like there’s phases within this electron transport phase and the voltages get stepped up in each phase. So CoQ10 is solely used to move the electrons in this third and this fifth phase. So if there’s shortages of that, what you’ll see is you know that there’ll be less, I mean the performance is reduced, this ability to transform that. So it has to get the CoQ10 in there.
Warren Cargal: Now as a sidebar here for you, what you see like for people who are on statins to reduce their cholesterol, what you notice now is all of the manufacturers or drug manufacturers are recommending that you take CoQ10 with the statins because what they have found out is the statins deplete the CoQ10 from the heart and then that drives heart issues further. So it’s a vicious cycle there. I mean the other thing with statin to be aware of it, is like, you know, statins have been marketed to deal with what’s called the bad cholesterol, which is LDL. There is no bad cholesterol in the bodies, you know, and to be really specific, that LDL is just about solely to move for repair of the nerves and a repair of the brain. And you know, the brain has its own private reserve of cholesterol.
Warren Cargal: So what do you think the effect is of restricting or reducing LDL? And probably you might begin to think something like, okay, reduced cognitive performance or cognitive decline is what they’re beginning to see now in longitudinal studies for people who have been on long term statin use. So CoQ10, you know, to help in the electron transport chain. And-
Sarah Clark: Sorry, what’s your take on ubiquinol in there too?
Warren Cargal: Yeah, ubiquinol that’s the one I would recommend. That’s the one that directly addresses what we’re talking about.
Sarah Clark: Okay, great.
Warren Cargal: And then the final thing is magnesium. So magnesium glycinate is what we use, or chelate, you can use either one of them diglycinate. But you have to remember that, you know, like throughout the whole body and specifically in the musculoskeletal system, you know, all the muscles are using ATP for their expansion and contraction. And so magnesium is solely used in that contraction where, I mean not the contraction but the expansion, where the muscle is contracted and then it has to release and it takes magnesium to do that. And so generally we see depletions of magnesium when there’s insufficient oxygen or you know when there’s excessive nutrients, we also see that coupled with magnesium depletion.
Sarah Clark: Yeah. I interviewed Dr. Carolyn Dean actually, her podcast will be coming on sometime in the summer and talking about the power of … She’s focused her work on magnesium. So it was a pretty powerful interview in there and talking about the … Because there so many different side effects that you could be that magnesium … I think she’s saying 80% of us are deficient in it and really that there’s so many different side effects that can be attributed to magnesium deficiency.
Warren Cargal: Yeah, it’s really fundamental. I mean magnesium is one of the things that you cannot overlook. And once you understand the importance of the mitochondria for driving the muscles, then you really get it quickly. Okay, I got to have some magnesium here.
Sarah Clark: Great. So we’ve got the L carnitine, the D-Ribose, the CoQ10 or ubiquinol, magnesium and that you’ve got that, you said they’re on your website, which is themitobook.com. They can get that basic outline for that. And is there any other resources, a book or a website or an app or anything? Obviously, your book as well, but any other books or websites or anything that you’d like to recommend?
Warren Cargal: Well, I mean, so a couple of things. I mean on themitobook.com there’s a free download, you know, kind of give you an overview more about what the book is and how it can help you in your life. So that’s a free download that you can get on the book. And then in our primary website, the acuatlanta.net, which I mean, you know, we have a lot of resources. We’re always writing stuff on our Facebook page or blog post and it’s a broad spectrum of things that we write about for lifestyle, how to improve your lifestyle. And you know, you can also purchase supplements there also if you want to or we have a resource where you can get a free 15 minute consult too. Sometimes you get to talk to me sometimes you get to talk to one of the other practitioners. I mean we have six practitioners here in the clinics. So you just kind of call us up and say, hey, what about this, if we get it done in 15 minutes, we’ll talk to you.
Sarah Clark: Great. So they can get the free download at the mito book. So the M-I-T-O book.com and then for the additional resources, you said acuatlanta.net?
Warren Cargal: Yep.
Sarah Clark: And they can also get a 15 minute console if they want to learn more. And so there sure are success story. I’m sure you’ve got lots but share a success story with us.
Warren Cargal: Oh, let’s see, when you mentioned that I was trying to think what would be a good success story for you? So, here’s the one that I enjoy it, I talk about it. So we had this woman and then she was a model here in Atlanta. There’s a lot of stuff, like there’s movies being shot here in Atlanta, you know, there’s the film industry and stuff like that. And so anyway, she was having some energy problems. And she was a single lady and she was dating, she had some things going on, stuff like that. So she was active at that level. And you know, in her early, like 42, something like that. So anyway, we started doing the protocol with her which also included acupuncture and herbs, but also the mitochondria protocol just to kind of bring your energy up. And so in that process, I mean we were seeing her for like six months or something like that.
Warren Cargal: But in that process, she had this guy she was seeing and they were all the time getting into arguments and stuff like that. And she was threatening to blow him off, it was kind of like every time I would see her there’d be some little ongoing trauma. Well, anyway, lo and behold, she got pregnant. She never wanted to get pregnant. I mean, she didn’t come in here for the purpose of getting pregnant, anything like that. It’s just like, you know, the mitochondria boosted her energy as we said you have a million eggs at birth, so she had a big reserve of eggs. And so like her statement was, “Well, you know, I decided to get rid of the guy, but I decided to keep the kid.” And, you know, occasionally I’ll see her here in Atlanta and I’d run into her and her kid’s now like about seven or eight. And you know, she just said it was such a transformative process for her to make the decision to do that and have a child in her life.
Sarah Clark: And we’re just going to back a little bit up. So, I’m at the protocol. So we do the Mitochondria Protocol, which you can get on your website there as far as … What kind of acupuncture and anything else you’d like to share a little bit about? Kind of how you work with clients.
Warren Cargal: Yeah, well, so generally we would start with some, I mean, once we clean up their diet, once we get kind of things normal … I mean, first it really depends on where they come in. Like if they’ve come in after a number of rounds of IVF, they are just, you know, really depleted, their cycle is really dysregulated and it can take us two to three months to get the cycle regulated clearly. And so at that level we’re using basal body temperature monitoring to kind of just see what’s happening during the luteal phase. If there’s a temperature spike occurring or if it’s no rise at all. Do you guys know what the temperature spike is? What I’m referring to?
Sarah Clark: Yeah. You can share a little bit about it. We did an episode actually, episode number … They can check it out on, get to know your cycle, which is episode number 20. Yeah, share a little bit about that process.
Warren Cargal: I mean, just quickly, you know, its just you’re taking your basal body temperature first thing in the morning before you get up and start moving around and you know, you just kind of make a note of it. And there’s plenty of online apps where you can go in and enter that, you know, like every week, just enter the information or every couple of days you can enter in the information. And in the preluteal phase, you know, after menses, for about the first 12 or 13 days or you know, somewhere in that range, you’ll see a low body temperature occurring. And then some around ovulation, you should see a spike occur, so we would call it a biphasic chart and that this spike occurs and then that elevated temperature stays consistent.
Warren Cargal: So the spike occurs with ovulation, the elevated temperature correlates with progesterone production, and though those give us indications of what’s happening within the body, if there’s no spike, you know, there’s issues happening with the progesterone, the FSH production, things like that. If there’s a spike and it fails, then there’s progesterone issues we have to look at to normalize the cycle. So once that cycle gets normalized, you know, and so we would do that with acupuncture and herbs and there’s four or five herbs that we will use depending on what their history is. But one that we really like, and it’s been around for 1,500 years is called Xiao Yao San.
Sarah Clark: How do you spell that?
Warren Cargal: So Xiao Yao San is spelled X-I-A-O,that’s how they say in Chinese Shao. Yao, Y-A-O, San, S-A-N. Xiao Yao San, and that translates as relaxed wanderer. But it is a phenomenal formula for women’s menses cycle issues. So when I say that, I would mean, you know, like the typical profile for use of this formula is like if there’s heavy periods, clotting, cramping, or if there’s light periods, you know, and though associated with irritability or depression, those kind of things would be a place where we would use that, you know, this formula. And that’s really not uncommon.
Warren Cargal: And especially, you know, if you’re sitting all day and you’re in a stressful job, you’re going to have those kinds of symptoms appear. So really in the first couple of months what we’re looking at is to kind of help relax the woman, normalize her period and help with the … I mean, like this particular formula, it also has a blood nourishing formulas. So like how we would see cramping, things like that, that would be seen as stagnation. So fundamentally what we want to do is try to nourish the blood to the uterus, the blood flow, because that’s going to be very important during conception. So it’s just a fabulous formula to help normalize, to nourish the blood, to cool excessive heat like when you’re irritable or you’re kind of, you know, your ears are maybe burning or something. Yeah.
Warren Cargal: So that’s the process. So we help the woman get her fluid sorted out, we help with these four fundamental issues that we identified that helps the mitochondria, breathing, food, more of fats in their diet and exercise, mild exercise, and then we do acupuncture and Chinese herbs. And I just gave you one herb but depending on what their history is, I mean, like I’d mentioned if there’s something like asthma or something like that, you know, then we’re going to probably add a formula in there to really nurse the lung function because that’s so important here.
Sarah Clark: Yeah, I know, I think this is great. Helping the mitochondria, that those steps are quite simple that someone could take and implement right now and looking at your diet even further digging into those healthy fats. Anything else in the protocol?
Warren Cargal: That’s really it. That’s how it progresses there and we’ve been really successful with it. We try to keep it really simple and based on this relevant information about just how fundamental the mitochondria are in contriving our life, health and longevity.
Sarah Clark: Awesome. Yeah, this has really been super informative. Definitely check out, get your free download there at themitobook. So the M-I-T-O book.com, yeah and I think you Warren for coming on the podcast today and sharing your expertise and your knowledge around the mitochondria.
Warren Cargal: Hey Sarah, thank you so much for having me. I hope it’s been fun hearing about your mitochondria.
Sarah Clark: Awesome. Thank you very much.
Warren L. Cargal, M. A., L. Ac. is a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist and a diplomat with the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. He has practiced Chinese medicine for over 20 years and has helped hundreds of men and women with fertility issues. He maintains an active clinical practice in Atlanta GA. Author of two books, Your Mitochondria Key to Health & Longevity” and The Reality We Create The Influence of Beliefs And Consciousness on Our Health And Longevity.
