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DISCOVER | Health & Wellness

Do Your Mitochondria Hold the Key to Healthy Aging?

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EVIDENCE: MODERATE FOR MITOCHONDRIA AS PART OF HEALTHY AGING · LOW/INSUFFICIENT FOR MITOCHONDRIAL TESTS AND PERSONALIZED OPTIMIZATION

Mitochondria are having a moment.

They're often described as the tiny power plants inside our cells—and there's good reason for the attention. Mitochondria are central to how cells produce energy, and mitochondrial changes are clearly associated with aging.

But that doesn't mean mitochondria are a master switch for aging.

And it doesn't mean that measuring your mitochondria—or taking supplements designed to "optimize" them—has been shown to make you live longer.

The science is considerably more interesting than that.

Mitochondria really do change as we age

Research in humans has found age-related changes in mitochondrial function, particularly in skeletal muscle.

A 2018 study from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, for example, found that skeletal-muscle mitochondrial respiration declined with age. It also found that mitochondrial respiratory capacity was related to aerobic fitness, muscle strength and walking performance.

That's important because it suggests that mitochondrial function doesn't exist in isolation. It is connected to how well the body actually functions.

Other research makes the picture even more complicated.

A 2014 study of adults aged 60 to 80 found substantial differences in mitochondrial function related to physical fitness. Older adults who had maintained endurance training had better measures of mitochondrial content and function than sedentary people of similar age. The researchers concluded that aging itself was not necessarily the primary explanation for mitochondrial dysfunction.

So yes, mitochondria change with age.

But how much they change, where they change, and how those changes relate to physical function can vary considerably from person to person.

That's an important distinction.

The "1% every year" claim

Mitome makes a much more specific claim.

Its homepage says:

"After age 18, you lose 1% of your mitochondrial function every year."

It then says that by age 70, more than half of your cellular energy production is gone.

That's a striking claim—and one that sounds precise enough to be scientific fact.

We looked for human evidence supporting that specific 1%-per-year trajectory and could not substantiate it.

That doesn't prove the 1% figure is false.

It means we could not find human research establishing a universal rule that mitochondrial function declines by exactly 1% every year beginning at age 18.

The human research we did find paints a more complicated picture. Mitochondrial function changes with age, but studies also find substantial relationships with physical activity, aerobic fitness, muscle strength and individual differences.

In other words, age matters, but age isn't the only thing happening.

That distinction matters when a precise number is presented as a general rule for everyone.

Exercise may matter more than mitochondrial optimization sounds

One of the most encouraging findings in mitochondrial research is also one of the least exotic.

Exercise changes mitochondria.

Older adults who remain physically active can maintain substantially better mitochondrial capacity than sedentary older adults. Exercise training can improve measures of mitochondrial content and function even later in life.

That doesn't prove exercise slows aging because it keeps mitochondria young.

But it does give us something much more useful: a behavior with strong evidence for preserving muscle, aerobic fitness, physical function and independence.

You don't have to understand every mitochondrial pathway to benefit from it.

Your body already knows what exercise is for.

Nutrition matters—but "more" isn't automatically better

Mitochondria require a wide range of nutrients to do their jobs.

That makes adequate nutrition important, particularly as people get older and appetite, food intake and nutrient absorption can change.

But there's a big difference between saying nutrient deficiencies can impair mitochondrial function and saying that everyone needs to aggressively supplement a long list of mitochondrial nutrients.

The first is well established.

The second requires evidence.

A biological mechanism can tell us that something could happen without telling us whether manipulating that mechanism in a healthy person actually produces a meaningful benefit.

That distinction comes up repeatedly in the growing mitochondrial-supplement industry.

What about "mitochondrial laws"?

Chris Masterjohn, PhD, has developed a broader philosophical framework around mitochondrial health called The Five Laws of Mitochondrial Health.

Masterjohn is a nutrition researcher and the founder of Mitome, a commercial company that offers at-home mitochondrial analysis and personalized recommendations.

His framework emphasizes ideas such as putting food before pharmaceuticals, maintaining a relationship with natural rhythms, recognizing individual differences and observing how our needs change over time.

Those are interesting principles.

But Masterjohn himself presents the Five Laws as fundamentally philosophical, rather than as five scientifically established laws of human aging.

That's an important distinction.

A useful philosophy doesn't become a scientific fact simply because it is expressed in biological language.

What exactly does a mitochondrial test tell you?

This is where the evidence becomes much thinner.

Mitome says its at-home test measures mitochondrial respiratory-chain activity and uses a proprietary analysis to identify a person's mitochondrial pattern and recommend a personalized optimization protocol.

The company says its system draws on 35,523 clinical studies and has identified more than 1,500 optimization pathways.

Those are claims about the body of research used to develop the system.

But there's a crucial difference between research used to develop a test and clinical evidence showing that the test works.

A test can be based on thousands of scientific papers and still require its own evidence demonstrating that using its results improves health.

We looked for a clinical study showing that people who act on Mitome's personalized test results experience better physical function, disease outcomes, longevity or another meaningful health outcome.

We could not find one.

That doesn't prove the test is useless.

It means the clinically important question—does acting on the test result make people healthier?—has not yet been adequately answered.

Mitome's own informed-consent materials also state that its services are not FDA-approved and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease.

That's not necessarily a criticism. It's a description of where the product currently sits.

The test itself is not the same thing as the outcome

This is a common problem in modern health optimization.

We can measure more and more things.

We can measure hormones, metabolites, genes, inflammatory markers, microbiomes—and now increasingly specific aspects of mitochondrial biology.

But measuring something doesn't automatically make changing it beneficial.

A test might accurately identify a biological difference without telling us whether correcting that difference will make someone live longer, feel better or function better.

That's why the most important question isn't:

"Can we measure it?"

It's:

"What happens when people act on the measurement?"

That's the evidence that is still missing for Mitome's personalized optimization approach.

And then there's the supplement question

The same caution applies to mitochondrial supplements.

There are plausible biological mechanisms behind substances such as CoQ10, creatine, urolithin A and other compounds marketed for mitochondrial support.

Some individual interventions have produced interesting findings in human studies.

But a plausible mechanism, an improved biomarker or an interesting small trial isn't the same thing as demonstrating that a mitochondrial supplement slows human aging or extends lifespan.

At this point, no mitochondrial "optimization" intervention has established that kind of effect in healthy humans.

That doesn't mean future research won't find one.

It means we're not there yet.

What should an older person actually do?

This is where the story gets refreshingly simple.

If your goal is to support the systems that keep you functioning well as you age:

Keep your muscles strong.

Maintain your aerobic capacity.

Keep moving.

Eat enough—and get adequate nutrients.

Sleep.

Recover.

Stay connected to people and things that give your life meaning.

Those aren't sexy mitochondrial hacks.

They're simply the fundamentals of healthy aging.

And unlike a proprietary mitochondrial score, many of these behaviors have decades of human evidence behind them.

The bigger lesson

Mitochondrial science is fascinating because mitochondria sit at the intersection of energy production, metabolism, muscle function and aging.

They clearly matter.

But healthy aging isn't a single pathway.

It's a network.

Mitochondrial function interacts with physical activity, nutrition, sleep, inflammation, hormones, genetics, disease and countless other processes.

So be skeptical of two opposite claims:

"Mitochondria don't matter."

And:

"Mitochondria are the master key to aging."

Neither captures what the human evidence actually tells us.

The more interesting answer is somewhere in between.

The Watchdog Takeaway

Your mitochondria matter. But you don't need to obsess over them.

Mitochondrial function changes with age, and mitochondrial biology is clearly connected to metabolism, muscle and physical function.

But the strongest practical evidence points somewhere remarkably simple:

Protect your strength. Maintain your aerobic fitness. Keep moving. Eat adequately. Sleep. Recover.

Exercise is well supported for preserving physical function and independence. It has not been proven that exercise slows aging specifically by slowing mitochondrial aging.

And be cautious with the growing mitochondrial-testing and supplement industry.

A test can measure a biological mechanism without proving that changing it will improve your health. We could not find clinical evidence that acting on Mitome's personalized test results improves meaningful health outcomes.

Mitochondrial science is fascinating. Mitochondrial optimization is still an experiment.

For now, the best reason to take care of your mitochondria may be the simplest one:

Take care of the body they help power.

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