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Mastering Nutrition: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Chris Masterjohn, PhD
Welcome to the Mastering Nutrition podcast. Mastering Nutrition is hosted by Chris Masterjohn, a nutrition scientist focused on optimizing mitochondrial health, and founder of BioOptHealth, a program that uses whole genome sequencing, a comprehensive suite of biochemical data, cutting-edge research and deep scientific insights to optimize each person's metabolism by finding their own unique unlocks. He received his PhD in Nutritional Sciences from University of Connecticut at Storrs in 2012, served as a postdoctoral research associate in the Comparative Biosciences department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's College of Veterinary Medicine from 2012–2014, served as Assistant Professor of Health and Nutrition Sciences at Brooklyn College from 2014–2017, and now works independently in science research and education.
Latest Episodes
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- Dec 15, 20256 min
Depression Starts In Your Mitochondria
You could be one metabolic bottleneck away from feeling amazing. Mitome is the first at-home test that measures your cellular energy directly and gives you a personalized roadmap to optimize energy, slow aging, and protect against disease. Find it at mito.me This is not medical advice and is for educational purposes only. Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome.
- Dec 9, 20253 min
Aging is best explained by declining mitochondrial function over time.
Aging is best explained by declining mitochondrial function over time. This answers its own "why." Mitochondria produce the energy needed for repair so if any of it gets lost it sets up a vicious cycle. And some *always* gets lost. But how much is under your control. From Joe Rogan Experience JRE 2420. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBn54YNnKD0 It's a vicious cycle initiated by the second law of thermodynamics which requires a constant input of energy to prevent the collapse of order. Hence, there will always be slippage, but how much slippage depends on genetics, environment, and behavior, and all slippage leads to loss of mitochondrial repair, which itself directly causes the loss of repair capacity as it weakens the defense against the imperative of the second law of thermodynamics.
- Dec 7, 20251 min
The Medical Myth That Nutritional Deficiencies Are A Thing of the Past
This is a clip from Joe Rogan Experience JRE 2420. Watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBn54YNnKD0 Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome.
- Dec 7, 20252 min
Why Doctors Think They Can Ignore the Studies Suggesting Seed Oils Cause Heart Disease
This is a clip from Joe Rogan Experience JRE 2420. Watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBn54YNnKD0
- Dec 5, 20255 min
The Problem With Seed Oils and Why They Are So Controversial
This is a clip from Joe Rogan Experience Episode 2420. You can watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBn54YNnKD0
- Dec 4, 20251h 42m
Mitochondria: Why They Control Everything in Human Health
Mitochondria govern everything. Watch this with the slides here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mED1_L3wZbc Mitochondria convert your food to usable energy in the form of ATP, which is used to produce, maintain, repair, distribute, and organize everything in your body. Abundant health right now, and preserving your health throughout the lifespan toward your longevity, all depends on your mitochondria. In fact the best explanation for aging is that its a vicious cycle of declining mitochondrial function. We should always be thinking of mitochondria first. SSRIs, acne treatments, and statins are given as examples. Targeting mitochondria without proper testing has its own set of problems. This video covers the top things we should all be doing for our mitochondria and how to figure out our own mitochondria's unique needs. This is not medical advice and is for educational purposes only. 1:20 Mitochondria govern everything because they convert food into usable energy 7:25 Mitochondrial dysfunction drives aging 10:43 Depression starts with your mitochondria 17:26 The problem with SSRIs 21:59 Acne should start with vitamin A, zinc, B5, and mitochondrial function 28:00 Cardiovascular disease starts with mitochondrial dysfunction 40:26 Statins are mitochondrial toxins 54:00 Targeting mitochondria without testing can be dangerous: three examples. 59:45 CoQ10: no one dose and no one supplement for everyone. 1:04:30 Methylene blue can make your mitochondria worse if you don't need it. 1:07:48 The power of mitochondrial testing: three examples 1:15:14 Mitochondrial biology 1:17:32 Your mitochondria are pointless if you don't have creatine 1:18:20 What Mitome is testing 1:20:42 What Mitome reports look like 1:21:57 Energetic bottlenecks are like traffic jams 1:25:01 Organic acid testing of mitochondrial function 1:26:53 Other mitochondrial tests 1:27:44 Five things everyone should do for their mitochondria right now. 1:40:48 We all have unique mitochondrial needs Do You Have Hidden Mitochondrial Dysfunction? Mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the earliest signs of aging and chronic disease—and most people don't know they have it. Mitome is the first at-home test that measures your cellular energy directly and gives you a personalized roadmap to optimize energy, slow aging, and protect against disease. Find it at mito.me
- Nov 23, 20251h 29m
SSRI Withdrawal Is Mitochondrial Dysfunction
Chris Masterjohn, PhD, Founder and Scientific Director of mito.me, explains why SSRI withdrawal is mitochondrial dysfunction and what to do about it. This is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. 29 million Americans and about 5-10% of the world's population are on SSRIs, which have become the first-line treatment of depression. These can cause sexual dysfunction and emotional blunting in up to half of people, an unclear incidence of sleep disruption, and a rare risk of suicidality, self-harm, and new-onset psychosis. On the other hand, 20-50% of people who go off experience SSRI discontinuation syndrome. This can involve irritability, anxiety, mood problems, crying, dread, suicidal ideation, insomnia, nightmares, excessive dreaming, lethargy, fatigue, headache, tremor, sweating, anorexia, flu-like symptoms, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, pain, numbness, tingling, feeling like something is crawling on the skin, electric shocks running through the brain or body, rushing noises, visual traces (seeing something persist when it is no longer there, or seeing moving objects leaving illusory streaks of light behind them, etc), dizziness, light-headedness, "brain zaps," vertigo, confusion, difficulty concentrating, amnesia, genital hypersensitivity, and premature ejaculation. A closely related problem is post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD), which can cause total inability to feel the penis for males or for females the genitals and nipples, loss of sexual pleasure, weak orgasms, decreased libido, erectile dysfunction, and premature ejaculation. PSSD is often associated with general anhedonia, apathy, and poor mood. In this video, Masterjohn maintains that the reason there are no good solutions to these problems is because we have completely misunderstood the role of serotonin and SSRIs. Serotonin's role is to help mitochondria adapt to changing demands for oxygen-based energy production. SSRIs enhance some of the mechanisms, and interfere with others. They enter the cell and stimulate independent mechanisms of mitochondrial stress adaptation, but in doing so they turn a cyclical and rhythmic pathway into a constantly stimulated one, creating mitochondrial dependence and making mitochondria vulnerable to new-onset dysfunction upon withdrawal. Once they make it to the mitochondria itself, the SSRIs act as mitochondrial toxins. Scientific references for everything covered in the video can be found in this series: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/prozac-is-a-performance-enhancing At the bottom of each article is a link to the next one. 0:30 SSRI Side Effects 1:00 SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome and PSSD 11:33 The Problem With Primary Care Doctors and Psychiatrists 14:56 The Reason We Don't Have Good Solutions Is Because We Don't Understand the Problem 16:22 Prozac Is a Performance-Enhancing Drug 18:40 Depression and Altitude 19:36 The Truth About Serotonin 25:10 How Serotonin Helps Us Breathe 30:05 Hypoxia Explains Why Serotonin Is So Abundant In the Gut 33:55 Serotonin, Melatonin, and the Mitochondria 35:50 Serotonin and Light 39:25 Intermittent Hypobaric Hypoxia Training 42:56 SSRIs Are Whole-Body, Primarily Non-Brain, Non-Neuronal, Mitochondrial Drugs 44:00 SSRIs and Birth Defects 46:37 SSRIs Deplete Serotonin 48:50 SSRIs Distort the Sigma-1 Receptor From a Cyclical to a Constant Activation 51:10 Different SSRIs Promote Different Ratios of Mitophagy and Mitochondrial Biogenesis 54:00 Going Off SSRIs Causes New-Onset Mitochondrial Dysfunction 58:30 Slow and Hyperbolic Tapers 1:02:10 What to Do About SSRI Withdrawal Mitochondrial Dysfunction Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondrial test Mitome. Do You Have Hidden Mitochondrial Dysfunction? Mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the earliest signs of aging and chronic disease—and most people don't know they have it. Mitome is the first at-home test that measures your cellular energy directly and gives you a personalized roadmap to optimize energy, slow aging, and protect against disease. Find it here at mito.me
- Sep 6, 20241h 34m
How Lactate Alkalinizes Your Muscles
For a long time, most people believed that when we exercise, our muscles make lactic acid, this acidifies the muscles, and the acidity contributes to contractile failure, fatigue, and delayed-onset muscle soreness. Some people still believe this. You may have heard the argument against it from well-known figures like Andy Galpin, or, if you're deep into the science, you may have read the work of George Brooks. In this lesson, we are going to cover the biochemistry of lactate production. We will see that we never make lactic acid, ever. We make lactate. Making lactate is fundamentally alkalinizing. We will take a look at the presentation of glycolysis in the Berg and Lehninger biochemistry textbooks to see that, on the one hand, they give us everything we need to know to understand that the human body never makes lactic acid, but, on the other hand, they really do not equip us well to understand where acidity does comes from during exercise. This is because they do not consider acid-base balance important enough to completely present the proton balances of the chemical reactions. Finally, we will cover what does cause muscular fatigue, take a look at the research on lactate supplements, and come to some conclusions about the best way to manage acidity during exercise to maximize performance. This is part of a larger course on the biochemistry of how we derive energy from food and use it to fuel our wellness, performance, and longevity. Take the full course here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/masterclass-with-masterjohn-energy To see the slides, watch this lesson on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrpbLllsSHQ To obtain the written version with timestamped slides for better studying, see here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/how-lactate-alkalinizes-your-muscles This lesson is free for one week. After that it will be reserved for Masterpass members. You can learn more about the Masterpass here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/about You can subscribe to the Masterpass here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/subscribe 2:52 How textbooks present glycolysis 3:36 What is acidity? 4:32 The acidfying and alkalinizing phases of glycolysis 7:09 Glycolysis: A brief review 10:08 The Principles 29:33 The Reactions -- and Where the Textbooks Go Wrong 38:59 Human beings do not make lactic acid 42:13 Lactate transport is even more alkalinizing to muscle 47:44 Robert Robergs Fights an Uphill Battle in Clarifying the Sources of Acidity and the Alkalinizing Effect of Lactate 1:01:08 What causes fatigue? 1:05:15 Does CO2 contribute to acidity? 1:13:45 Where is Glycolysis Getting Backed Up? 1:23:10 Conclusiuons: What's realy going on with exercise-induced acidosis. 1:26:34 Lactate supplements 1:30:53 How to use this information in training for optimal performance. Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondrial test Mitome.
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About Mastering Nutrition
Welcome to the Mastering Nutrition podcast. Mastering Nutrition is hosted by Chris Masterjohn, a nutrition scientist focused on optimizing mitochondrial health, and founder of BioOptHealth, a program that uses whole genome sequencing, a comprehensive suite of biochemical data, cutting-edge research and deep scientific insights to optimize each person's metabolism by finding their own unique unlocks. He received his PhD in Nutritional Sciences from University of Connecticut at Storrs in 2012, served as a postdoctoral research associate in the Comparative Biosciences department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's College of Veterinary Medicine from 2012–2014, served as Assistant Professor of Health and Nutrition Sciences at Brooklyn College from 2014–2017, and now works independently in science research and education.
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