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Up One cuts through the noise of health and wellness trends. Hosted by Sawyer Stone and longevity scientist Dr. Bill Andrews, each episode unpacks peer-reviewed research on supplements, therapies, and diagnostics - no fluff, just facts. If you're serious about the science of aging and human performance, it's time to take it Up One.
Sawyer Stone: [00:00:00] So are you saying that one day we won't age?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Oh yes, I am saying that that's my main goal in life and it's gonna be take probably more than just lengthening telomeres and keeping mitochondria healthy. It's gonna take maybe cryogenics to work, somebody to figure out how to do that, or whole brain emulation, which is, you know, if you drive off a cliff, you, your brain gets uploaded to a computer and then they pick up tissue cells from the tissues down at the bottom of the cliff and make a clone of you and then.
Upload your brain back into that body.
Sawyer Stone: What?
Welcome to Up one, the podcast where we take a deep dive into the science behind supplements, therapies, and diagnostics. I'm Sawyer Stone, your Guide through the Maze of Health Claims. Here to ask the big questions.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And I'm Dr. Bill Andrews With decades of experience in medical research, I've dedicated my career to uncovering.
The real science behind disease, [00:01:00] aging, and human health. On this podcast, we don't just skin the surface of scientific studies. We conduct a critical meta-analysis separating credible research from misleading conclusions.
Sawyer Stone: There's a lot of noise out there, conflicting studies, bold claims, and endless marketing up.
One is here to cut through it all and bring you science backed insights that you can actually trust.
Dr. Bill Andrews: We're talking prevention, diagnostics, treatments, and the big questions shaping the future of health.
Sawyer Stone: If you're serious about understanding the science of health and longevity without the fluff, let's take it up one.
Hello, Dr. Bill.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Hello, how are you?
Sawyer Stone: I'm doing well, thank you. Well,
Dr. Bill Andrews: I, this is our last episode of this season, so I know we've been through a lot together. Uh,
Sawyer Stone: yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And I, but I think, I think this is gonna be a powerful episode because I'm very, very passionate about the subject [00:02:00] we're talking about.
Mitochondria Health.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah, I've definitely heard you talk about it, so I know you are, and I'm excited to get to chat with you about it. I'm a little, um, having like a little bit of some bittersweet feelings because this is our last episode of season one of the Up one podcast, so it's a little bittersweet.
We'll be back. Don't you worry, we're gonna come back and haunt your earbuds and talk about science.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Many seasons to come. There's so much left.
Sawyer Stone: Many seasons to come. I know, I know. I feel like we did pick like a subject matter that's endless, like we could go on forever about it. I think today we're gonna break down and hopefully sim simplify the help and function of mitochondria, AKA, the powerhouse of the cell.
Can you tell us like in simple terms what a mitochondria is or what they be, where they come from, all the things.
Dr. Bill Andrews: You just described it pretty well. It is the powerhouse of the cell.
Sawyer Stone: I did go to science class. [00:03:00] I don't, you know, that's, that's about all I got though.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Um, but it, it's not the only source of power in the cell, but it is the majority of power that comes from in our cells.
Um, it's, um, something that. Somehow guiding ourselves from a long time ago. Uh, apparently some predecessor, if, if, if we talk about evolution, some predecessor to humans when we're probably single cells engulfed something called an alpha proto bacterium. Uh, and, uh, that bacterium became permanent inside that cell that ate it, and that became the power source of.
Of ourselves. Um, we do, we do have other ways and that was most important when oxygen entered the atmosphere because beforehand we were, we were getting our power from anaerobic respiration. Um, and then this allowed us to get power from aerobic respiration, which is a lot, [00:04:00] lot better 'cause it's a lot more energy.
But, uh, I, I can, I, you know, mitochondria are, are, um. Small little things. There's a hundred per cell, let's say on average. Uh, some cells have a lot more, some cells have less depending on how much power they need. Uh, okay. But when you look in the microscope, you can actually see them and, oh, you can actually, you, you can look inside of a cell.
You can see these small little, they look like bacteria inside our cells. And they, they're complex. They, they have an inner membrane and an outer membrane. Mm. And they're all involved with a production of adenosine phosphate, uh, a TP, which is the main energy source, main storage thing for energy in the human body.
It's, there's other ways of storing energy, um, like NAD and FAD and NADP and things like [00:05:00] that. But, um, a TP is. The most flexible, the most, the easiest one to control for this, for the cell to control, the easiest one for to distribute to different places. But, uh, uh, I mean, I, if you want, if you want me to just keep talking, I can talk and talk and talk.
Tell me when you, when I've answered the question sufficiently.
Sawyer Stone: No, you did for sure. I just wanna go back and clarify. So the structure of the mitochondria is like bacteria like, and it has an outer membrane and an inner membrane.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yes.
Sawyer Stone: And it is helping us breathe.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah. It's
Sawyer Stone: process oxygen.
Dr. Bill Andrews: It it, well, oxygen is, uh.
The source of a lot, a lot of the source. I mean, it's, well, that's more common. Glucose is the main source. Um, but um, I see oxygen is required for the mitochondria to actually function. Okay. And, uh, okay,
Sawyer Stone: I'm here now.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And so if you are lacking oxygen, you're sugars that [00:06:00] actually, well, when you eat a sugar, it goes through lysis, ends up as pyruvate.
And then pyruvate used to just go off to become, uh, anaerobic respiration and that would cause lactic acid buildup. And that's why we get pain in our muscles when we're running because of lack of, we're not getting enough oxygen, so our body goes to this anaerobic respiration. But, but now because of mitochondria, we now can take that pyruvate enter what's called the kreb cycle, which is actually inside.
Inside the, all the membranes inside the mitochondria. The kreb cycle just produces NADH. Mm-hmm. Actually NADH. And then, then that goes to this process called the, uh, oxidative Phosphorylation. Phosphorylation, which is the, uh, electron transport chain, which converts all that NADH or converts It converts that NADH into a [00:07:00] TP.
Through a process that I can explain pretty thoroughly, but I don't know if we want to get into that much detail, but that's the main goal. Oh, and so,
Sawyer Stone: yeah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: I, you know what the analogy that I really like is if you think of Lake Mead, which is, uh, lake just, uh, west or east of Las Vegas, if you think of Lake Yeah.
As, as not WA filled with water, but filled with hydrogen or more, more, let's say NADH, which is a storage of hydrogen. And then Hoover Dam is, is uh, a TP Synthes, which is part of the, uh, membrane of mitochondria. So the water, so that, like the hydrogen now in inside of Lake Mead rushes down Hoover Dam. And during that process generates energy in the form of a TP,
Sawyer Stone: right?
Oh.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And, uh, and the outcome is. Uh, hydrogen and, and there's also water that's produced [00:08:00] from the entire elec electron transport chain. So it's, it's a very interesting thing.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Very exciting to, to learn all about it in high school and college and stuff like that is like, uh, mind blowing.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. Okay. That was good.
I needed that because I, I did not major in anything that needed a science class, and so this has like, been since high school for me, so thank you for that refresher. And I like the Hoover Dam, like mead. That was, that was good. Good, good, good. Okay. Okay. So does getting back to like how the mitochondria affects the human body or our bodies, like, does the.
Poor. Does poor mitochondrial function create a chain reaction that leads to bigger issues? Like what would those issues be? Is it something like fatigue? Does it speed up the visual signs of aging? Like if our mitochondrial health isn't great, like we got gray hair and wrinkles, tell me what's up with that.
Well,
Dr. Bill Andrews: it does two things, but [00:09:00] the most important thing first is that it causes. Membranes. Okay. So they're, we talk about two membranes, but they're not like two membranes In a typical bacteria, uh, one membrane is like totally inside and it's like a big, like loop of all kinds of things to increase the surface area as much as possible.
And then there's the outer membrane, but, uh, the, um, the outer me, the inner membrane has to keep, um. Let's say free radicals inside. 'cause lot free radicals is something that, that results a lot from the process, all the way from glycolysis, crep cycle, um, electron transport. And so the, uh, free radicals have to be kept inside.
But, and, and also the hydrogen that leads from the NAD has to be pumped to the outside, uh, of, of the membrane to keep, to form a gradient so that the outside is more positive than the inside. I know I'm getting too technical. I don't know how else to do it, but [00:10:00] the, uh,
Sawyer Stone: no, I think you have to, yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: That gradient is what drives, uh, the a, uh, hydrogen through the A TP Synthes, uh, system. But the key is that when the membranes get weak or start becoming falling apart, then electrons, uh, free radicals can seep through a membrane and cause a lot of oxidative damage. People talk about oxidative damage to the mitochondria, DNA, but that's, that's only a small part of it.
The, the free radicals that leak cause oxidative damage throughout the cell. And so that is a, that's a cause of poor health. I don't you're gonna find, I don't like talking about mitochondria causing aging. I like mitochondria, talking about mitochondria causing poor health. And I think that poor health could be more result of aging, not the cause of aging.
So. There's a lot of theories on aging saying that we age because of accumulation of DNA damage [00:11:00] caused by free radicals. Um, but there's, there's, if,
Sawyer Stone: okay,
Dr. Bill Andrews: if you listen to some of our previous podcasts, you'll, you'll understand why. I don't really understand how that's, why, how that's causing aging. Um, but, um, 'cause we, we should have the ability to get rid of those cells and this our, our dec decline in ability to get rid of those.
Damaged cells with the damaged DNA, that is really the cause of aging. Okay. So, right. So now when, uh, uh, pumps start working to pump the NAD or the hydrogen outside the membranes.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: When that stops working, what also stops working is the, uh, Hoover Dam is the pump that pumps the hydrogen back into the, oh, it's not a pump, but it flows through because of the.
The charge gradient between the inner and outer side, but it goes through less often and generates less a TP. And as a result, uh, dysfunctional [00:12:00] mitochondria generate less a TP, so you have less energy and it creates more free radicals. Um mm-hmm. And, uh, so you have a lot more damage to tissues and things like that.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. Okay. So then you are not saying that it speeds up the visual signs of aging because you are saying that you're not a fan of the idea that the two are linked.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I, I do think it speeds up the aging, but for d for, but that's not the cost. It's like we have this great inborn ability. To repair our wear and tear.
Okay.
Sawyer Stone: Right.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And so free radicals cause wear and tear, which cause damages, but we have just great abilities through cell division to replace all that wear and tear. And so I think it's so, so we shouldn't age if we can [00:13:00] constantly remove those damage. Cells and replace 'em with new cells. But as you can, I, you smile.
I know you're, you're hearing me thinking telomeres because I, I think the main cause of aging, and there's no way I'm gonna change my mind on this. I think the main cause of aging is telomere shortening, and that's also the main reason why mitochondria. Cause damage and also is, I think the main reason why we, we have to protect our telomeres to maintain good telomere health.
And I wasn't gonna jump into that so soon 'cause I wanted to talk a little more about mitochondria. But
Sawyer Stone: we can go back. We can go back to mitochondria. You can go in, yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah.
Sawyer Stone: Go in on your telomere.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Okay. Well, so, well I, right now we've made major strides in telomere biology, but we're not. A hundred percent there yet.
Okay. Hmm. And so that's what I'm doing. I'm still working on trying to solve the telomere shortening problem, but until then, I'm doing a lot to protect my mitochondria health as much [00:14:00] as I can. So I take Uli and a all the time. Hmm. And I, I'll explain what that is and after I get through with the list, 'cause I, I'm trying to think.
I take nicotine my riboside every day. Um, I take, uh, coq 10, I take PQQ. Uh, I do whatever I can to induce my PGC one alpha, uh, and beta. Uh, and I, and I do everything that the Kaufman Protocol says about,
Sawyer Stone: ah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: helping your mitochondria. We had Dr. Sandra Kaufman on a previous podcast, but not only you sure did, and that was on, uh, menopause.
But not only is she an expert on that, but she's written the best book ever on the subject of supplements to take. Called the cough protocol and I, I, you know, I used to speak at medical conferences and go through all these supplements and why you taking those things like that. And now I just say, go read.
The Kaufman program.
Sawyer Stone: Go read the Yeah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: yeah. You don't have to read the whole thing because [00:15:00] it, it directs you onto what pages to go given who you are and things like that. So that's why I really like it, but it's really good. So I've, I, I take everything else and I can't remember 'em all, but I take everything else that Dr.
Kaufman recommends. But let's talk. So let's talk about U Lithium A for a second. Okay. So, uro Lithium A is a great way to induce the removal of dysfunctional mitochondria. Okay. When the mitochondria start failing, they become in dysfunctional, start producing too many free radicals and start pro produc not producing enough a TP.
Um, there are systems in the mitochondria and the cell that help identify those. Um, people probably would like to hear me talk about things like pink one and parking. UBI Nation and Proteasomes and things like that, that are involved in getting rid of it. I'll skip all that at least.
Sawyer Stone: Sure, sure.
Dr. Bill Andrews: At least they know.
I know the words, but, uh, the, uh, um, uh, [00:16:00] it's so you're lith, so, so we already have the ability to get rid of dysfunctional mitochondria, uh, through those words I just mentioned.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: But they work more efficiently when you use U Lithium A and that's really important to get rid of. I see. Of dysfunctional mitochondria.
Now our body, our cells have the ability to then make new mitochondria. And let's say what's really exciting is mitochondria is like unique in some senses that I, I'm unaware of anything else that does this. They actually can, when, when, when a mitochondria duplicates itself, it doesn't duplicate it like other cells do.
Let's, let's say mitochondria were once cells. They go through a process of fission and fu fi fission fusion.
Sawyer Stone: Hmm. But,
Dr. Bill Andrews: but the key thing is, is that if the DNA is damaged, it does not replicate that DNA for the new mitochondria. Okay. It gets it elsewhere. [00:17:00] Okay. And that's really exciting. So Really,
Sawyer Stone: yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Getting, uh, mitochondrial biogenesis does not duplicate the mutants mutations that occur in mitochondria, which is really good for us.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Now here's the problem is that in order to, so to replace, to build new mitochondria, you need good telomere health. Okay?
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And that's the problem. It's like we, we, there's nothing, if our tels are bad, there's nothing we can really do to help our mitochondria health.
We have to maintain art telomere health in order to do the other things, and I believe. And of course I can only guess right now 'cause, but I strongly believe that when we have even better telomerase inducers than we have now, we may not have any mitochondria dysfunction at all either, because a lot of the mitochondria dysfunction occurs from things that happen from Short Tel.[00:18:00]
And so it's
Sawyer Stone: So are you saying that one day we won't age?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Oh yes, I am saying that that's. As long, that's my main goal in life. And I mean, it's gonna be, it's gonna be take probably more than just lengthening telomeres and keeping mitochondria healthy. Uh, it's gonna take, uh, uh, maybe cryogenics to work better, uh, or to somebody to figure out to do that, or, or whole brain emulation, which is, you know, if you, if you drive off a cliff, you, your brain gets uploaded to a computer and then.
They pick up tissue cells from the tissues down at the bottom of the cliff and make a clone of you, and then upload your brain back into that body. Those are the what things that it might take. I mean, we shoulda have, we, we should have Randall Coney on one of these calls sometimes in episode two. He's, he's the world's leader on whole brain emulation, and Elon Musk is doing a lot of work on that too.
And so is, uh, danki another billionaire. Uh, but, um, [00:19:00] the, uh, um. It's, it's the future. Okay. So I, I think that, you know, I believe in what, uh, Terry Grossman, Dr. Terry Grossman, one time quoted a frame phrase called live long enough to live forever. And that's what I think everybody should be doing. Sure. And so that's what I'm doing.
'cause I want to be around when all these other come along. I don't want be, I don't want somebody to figure out how to cure aging, but I'm already there. Um, so
Sawyer Stone: Right, right.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Getting back on subject, sorry, off tank with her. So what people don't know, and by the way, you know, people always often will say mitochondria are the main cause of aging and things like that.
That's. Help keep your mitochondria healthy and your reverse agent. But really the only people that say that are the people that are marketing mitochondria products. Okay. It, it's not sure really true. Okay. And part of what's going on here is that people don't realize that 99% of all the proteins that get [00:20:00] that make up am mitochondria are encoded by the nuclear chromosome.
Okay. So we have to keep our nuclear chromosome healthy to keep our, uh, mitochondria healthy. And one of the main causes of poor nuclear chromosome health is short telomere. When telomere get short, they start causing all kinds of, uh, I call it skyrocketing mutation rates that really damage our DNA. So we gotta keep telomeres long, and then when that happens, it damages.
The proteins that are part of the mitochondria, since there's 15,000, approximately genes on our chromosomes, okay? We have 25,000 gene different genes total, but 15, right? I'm sorry, not 15,000, 1,500. So 1,500 genes on our chromosomes are responsible for making up the mitochondria. So we gotta keep those genes healthy.
We gotta turn, keep those genes turned on. [00:21:00] Skyrocketing mutation rates make those unhealthy caused by short telomeres, but also telomeres are like something called enhancer sequences that are found throughout our chromosomes. Uh, and a recent publication just came out, I've been saying this for 30 years, but a recent publication just came out this year that, that supports all this theory too and, and, and shows it actually that telomeres actually will fold over, come in contact with genes on your chromosomes.
And turn them on or off depending on what the gene is. What,
Sawyer Stone: and
Dr. Bill Andrews: yeah, that's, that's, that's what enhancer se we've known, like I remember in the 1970s learning about enhancer sequences. And that's really well understood. Uh, enhancers are d regions of our DNA that can be a hundred thousand bases away, away from a gene.
The DNA can fold over. Proteins will bind to the enhancer proteins will bind to the promoter, which I like to call a dimmer switch. Yeah. And we'll come in [00:22:00] contact with one another and then turn the gene on and suddenly the gene gets red. Okay. Telomeres have all the hallmarks of enhancer sequences. I, I've known this for 30 years.
Even the histones that bind to telomeres are exactly the same histones that bind to enhancer sequences. The big difference between enhancer sequences in the chromosomes and tel. So telomere, shorten, and so as they shorten right. The ability to regulate the genes decreases. 'cause the telomere can't reach as far.
Okay. But that's, that's another reason why we have to keep our Tel Long. And there's a great publication by Dr. Rhonda Pennell. Uh, I mean, he, he also was the doctor that, that, um, put our s. MOUs promoting system into engineered mice to show what he called a remarkable reversal of aging. And on Diane Sawyer.
Uh, but he also published a paper showing that telomere length controls what's called expression of pgc one Alpha and [00:23:00] it's Family of proteins. Okay. PGC one Alpha are like the master switches of the mitochondria genes. Okay, so they,
Sawyer Stone: okay,
Dr. Bill Andrews: so. When ERs get short, PGC one alpha doesn't get produced as much and therefore it doesn't turn on the other mitochondria genes that make up the mitochondria.
Uh, PQQ helps with that. PQ Q helps with, with regenerating PGC one alpha, uh, but it's still not as efficient as it was before te when omes were long. So we, if we really wanna increase our mitochondria health. We have to figure out ways of really lengthening our telomeres. And we are, we're, we're not. We, we are, we have come up with some great pro, you're I'm sure very familiar with Televi, uh, which is the latest product we came up with.
I, I actually haven't bought here, right there, but I'm sure they're very
Sawyer Stone: pretty.
Dr. Bill Andrews: They're gonna promote that, uh, the [00:24:00] um, uh, but tele vital will induce the expression of telomerase. To lengthen telomeres. And we, I mean, it is, it's not gonna win the tug of war between telomere, lengthening and shortening, but it will sure slow it down and therefore slow down the decline of mitochondria health.
And also, we, we've known that, uh, we, from so much anecdotal data, we, we, we think what what's happening is that the critically short t mers are actually getting longer and there's several publications. Uh, uh, per pro promoting this, including one by, uh, one of the Nobel Prize winners, Carol Greer, uh, showing that telomerase preferentially lengthens the shortest telomere.
And I know we're going on tangents here, but that's, I think if telomeres is like a ball of yarn. And when the ball, when a telomeres long, the ball of yarn is big. And so telomerase can't get to the tip of the telomere that's buried inside that [00:25:00] ball of yarn to lengthen it. Right. When chewers get critically short, that ball of yarn falls apart.
It becomes easier for telomerase to get there. So even though we're not winning the tug of war with the longer ones, we are producing enough telomerase to lengthen the sh critically short telomers. And since
Sawyer Stone: right
Dr. Bill Andrews: in humans, at least telomerase is called processive. So once it binds, it keeps lengthening.
It doesn't. Fall off, like in mice, it lengthens a little, it falls off, comes back on, falls off, falls off again. So ERs could get really long and that might be why we're seeing a lot of what I, what I'm seeing is I'd be blind not to, to ignore it. I'd be blind to ignore it, that we are seeing a lot of age reversal from even tele vital, uh, even though it's very
Sawyer Stone: exciting.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah, I know. It's, it is. I, I, I, I just, I'm looking forward to further studies to really figure out. Is this tele vital, something way beyond what we thought it would be. Uh, but [00:26:00] getting back to telomere, uh, it's, and, and well tel vital is probably the best thing anybody could be doing right now for their telomere health.
Yeah. But getting back to telomeres, when telomeres get short, pgc one alpha shuts off. It's a gene on the nuclear chromosome that g, that pgc one alpha then regulates other genes on the chromosomes that are involved in mitochondria health. And that's how healthy mitochondria come from. It turns out mitochondria also have its own DNA.
It's a circular DNA, uh, and so it has no telomere, but it only has 13 genes. So relative to the 1,500 genes on the nuclear chromosome,
Sawyer Stone: right,
Dr. Bill Andrews: make up, the mitochondria only has 13. And those 13 are all involved in the electron transport chain. Which is what? What did I mention before? Since hydrogen, the outside makes a TP.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Uh, and even those don't make up all the components [00:27:00] of the complexes. There's five complex four. If you don't count a TP synthesis, there's four complexes in the mitochondria membrane. That actually are involved in pumping hydrogen outside the, um, inner membrane to create the, uh, gradient. And, uh, I know I'm getting very technical and things I'm, people might have to go to Google and read up things that catch up on everything I'm saying, but, um, uh, it's like, even if, even if all the mitochondria DNA were healthy and the
Sawyer Stone: Yeah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: their chromosomes weren't healthy.
Those complexes still won't work. 'cause most of the proteins in those complexes come from the nuclear chromosome. So it's a, it, it, it's
Sawyer Stone: fascinating.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Comes back to telomere. Uh, and, uh, but, uh, but, but yeah, but mitochondria is health. Very important. That's why I do everything I can to maintain mitochondria health as much as possible.
And I gotta say my favorites are uli [00:28:00] and a and nicotine in my riboside. I mean, I think those are the best things anybody could be doing, but what? But I take K coq 10 and, and PQQ and all the other stuff every day. And I was mentioning controlling PGC one alpha. Uh, I think I already mentioned this. PQQ also does that, and te like any tel, uh, does that too.
Sawyer Stone: I see. That's so fascinating. Well, okay, so we know how the mitochondria is affecting our cellular health. Can you tell me a little bit about like mitochondrial dysfunction and how it accelerates our body's oxidative stress? Because we know that the oxidative stress is gonna lead to aging, and so can you tell us a little bit about that?
Dr. Bill Andrews: The, it's the membranes falling apart and the leakage of free radicals outside the mitochondria. Okay. Now we do so, so that's a good reason to be also taking all your [00:29:00] antioxidants. Especially alpha lipoic acid, which is very good for getting everywhere, including the free radicals inside the mitochondria.
Okay, so, so you, so which damage the mitochondria? DNA. Uh, but uh, you know, I take what? Alpha lipoic acid. I take GCGC, what is it? The one in green tea extract. I always get the letters mixed up. Uh, and, uh,
Sawyer Stone: oh,
Dr. Bill Andrews: I take, uh. I can't even remember all the free antioxidants I take, but oh, I take NAC, which, you know, Nick, um, n-acetylcysteine is it's called.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah, I just learned about that this week.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, that's, that's, that produces, uh, glutathione inside your cells and,
Sawyer Stone: okay.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I've never understood why people take glutathione, why they spend all that money to take glutathione when Nico, uh, n-acetylcysteine. Will do the same thing. And it's, it's like a thousand, if not 10,000 times cheaper.[00:30:00]
Okay. Uh, that's crazy.
Sawyer Stone: Maybe they just don't know. Maybe you're educating
Dr. Bill Andrews: them. Well, the marketers, it's all marketing. Uh,
Sawyer Stone: God, it really is.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah.
Sawyer Stone: Take all of this, take our whole line. Do all of this.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I'm glad. I'm good at critical meta-analysis of peer reviewed studies. 'cause that's how I know that
Sawyer Stone: Yeah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: glutathione is just a marketing thing.
Uh, but, uh, so. And, and I take n-acetylcysteine to produce my glutathione. Uh, but you know, we also have superoxide, superoxide dismutase inside of our cells to get rid of the, um, free radicals, uh, uh, what do you call it? Uh, super oxygen, or I can't remember the name of it, but the oxygen radicals that, that are really damaged and superoxide, dys Mutase gets rid of those.
Uh, so, so in addition to all the things I mentioned before for mitochondrial health. You should take your antioxidants because they help relieve the problems that dysfunctional mitochondria cause. Correct. And that's the leakage of free [00:31:00] radicals into the cell that cause that wreak havoc everywhere. And
Sawyer Stone: yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: You had said that, you know, that leads to aging. Yes, it does. But only because arters are shortening. Right. Okay. It wouldn't, because we, we can constantly be replacing these damaged tissues themselves. If. We will keep our telomeres long and stuff like that. But yeah, until, until we have something that really knocks your socks off with telomere lengthening, uh, I recommend all these products to, uh, prevent, uh, mitochondria decline.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. Maybe we need like a bill's list of products, Dr. Bill's list of products.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I think Sandra Kaufman, Dr. Sandra Kaufman is,
Sawyer Stone: yeah. So you're saying go to the Kaufman Protocol and
Dr. Bill Andrews: I, I'll never forget. When I was at a conference, this is I think in 2016, I was walking through an expo at a conference where I was like the keynote speaker and I was just walking through and she runs out of her booth, [00:32:00] grabs my bag, stuffs my, her book into my bag, and it says, read it.
And I just walked off, walked off and just thought, okay, I, I don't know what that was about. When I was on the airplane, when I was on the airplane flying back home. I said, okay, well what do I do? I opened up my bag and there's that book and I started reading it and I tell you, yeah, I was blown away. I wrote the best book review ever on any book I've ever read and put on amazon.com.
And then she heard about it and uh, contacted me and we've been colleagues ever since.
Sawyer Stone: Oh, I was gonna say, yeah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: one of she, that's why she was on our podcast a few weeks ago. Yeah, a few months
Sawyer Stone: ago. She has that energy of like, you will read this book because I ask you to. She has good energy. I like that.
Okay. We know about the telomeres, right? And we know about their effects on all the things, but how does supporting mitochondrial efficiency become the [00:33:00] deep health engine that also protects and amplifies the long-term benefit of telomere health? Like, gimme a little bit more about that.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, I, I guess I should have said this before, but one of the things that telomeres, uh, free radicals damage is the telomeres.
Okay. Right. That's, that's accelerated telomere shortening is what I call it. Um, and, uh, uh, so, so when the free radicals leak out of the mitochondria. They are very good at attacking DNA and breaking the DNA, or at least other processes occur during the repair to break the DNA most often. Uh, but the telomere get shortened at accelerated rate, and that is a great way to accelerate aging, okay?
Mm-hmm. Now every cell is different, so you, you really, that's the other reason why I have a hard time saying that mi dysfunctional mitochondria cause aging, because you'd have to have that happen in all your cells, not just. Like 1% of your cells in order to actually have aging. [00:34:00] But that can happen in some cases, in all your cells if you are leading a very unhealthy lifestyle and stuff like that.
But yeah, so one way that healthy mitochondria can maintain healthy telomeres is by not having not leaking the free radical. So keep, so getting rid of dysfunctional mitochondria helps your telomeres. Keeping telomeres long, helps your mitochondria. So it's a two-way street.
Sawyer Stone: Good to know. Okay. Basically all around like getting your body right?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yes.
Sawyer Stone: Is the key. Yeah. Okay. Well, okay, so then how does improving mitochondrial health make your cells more resilient against daily wear and tear? Maybe you just sort of just answered this. Does resilience relate, translate into better metabolic function and overall longevity optimization?
Dr. Bill Andrews: I mean, free radicals cause damage to all the proteins, all the enzymes.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: [00:35:00] Decreases everything. So free radicals are good thing too. I mean
Sawyer Stone: our, yeah, that's the hard part for me is like, remind me what a free radical is made of.
Dr. Bill Andrews: It's, it's just a molecule with a negative charge on it. Well, free article could be positive charge too. I guess the example I like here is our macrophages.
Which are one of the things that keep us from getting bacterial infections and, and the, uh, what do you call it? There's the, um, two different types of immunology, and I'm going blank on what their names are, but acquired and, uh, oh, shoot, I, I can't remember the other one. Um, but the other one, whatever it is, macrophages.
So we get like infected by a bacteria or something like that. Macrophages, which are cells that float around inside of our bloods vessels. Will find them and they will shoot free radicals like machine guns. Oh my gosh. At these bacteria to kill 'em. Okay.
Sawyer Stone: That's crazy.
Dr. Bill Andrews: So free radicals are important in some senses, but in, but they do, but you wanna have 'em under [00:36:00] control.
It's like you don't wanna be in a army barracks with the machine guns firing everywhere you want. The machine guns only firing at the targets, you know? Right. Uh, but, and, but, uh, yeah. So, so. The main, the main thing well see also, since every function in the body requires a TP. Okay,
Sawyer Stone: yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: So every like enzymatic function, all the processes of en enzyme practically require a TP.
When a TP gets low, everything shuts down. Okay? So you wanna keep, so that's another reason. So it causes declining health and you're, when you, when your body has less energy, you become more susceptible to. Diseases are more likely to die from something. Uh, so, so keeping your energy levels up is important.
Um, and that's why keeping your mitochondria health is up is so important. There's a lot of studies showing that Parkinson's is correlated with a large buildup of dysfunctional mitochondria. [00:37:00] And, uh, so it's, I'm sure one of the main things that people are doing to alleviate Parkinson's symptoms is. To at least do things like uan A and uh, PQQ and, and tele Vital, uh, it's all gonna help with, uh, mitochondria health.
Um, well at least get rid of the dysfunctional mitochondria. 'cause once it's dysfunctional, it's pretty hard to repair it. You can repair the mitochondria by making a new one, getting rid of the odone, making a new one, uh, and that that's what everything that I just mentioned is gonna be involved in. Yeah, keeping telomeres long, keeping PGC one alpha expressed, keeping your PQQ levels up and keeping your uly a up.
And then, then, then NAD and riboside and things like that become important because those are the substrates used in the processes of generating energy and, [00:38:00] and moving, going from a glucose molecule to, to water essentially, and, and releasing energy.
Sawyer Stone: Why is the conversation within the longevity community moving so rapidly to focus on mitochondrial health right now?
And how does this change the way we think about the future of healthy aging? Like what is this new sort of like, revamped excitement about mitochondrial health?
Dr. Bill Andrews: The first part of your question is good marketing. Okay.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah. I mean, we, we, we gotta do more than just on brand,
Sawyer Stone: on
Dr. Bill Andrews: trend, focus on mitochondria health, but it's not.
It's not that I, the marketers are correct, we gotta maintain our mitochondria health, but we gotta do a lot more than just that. Okay.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Uh, making, so there are doctors that will say, I've improved a person's mitochondria, therefore I reversed their aging. Well, that's not true at all. Okay. They've only [00:39:00] reversed a biomarker of aging.
Yeah, that's, you know, if people watch my videos and stuff like that, you'll hear, hear that? I'm always talking about the Betty White test. Yeah. Okay. You have to, you, you ha somebody has to pass the Betty White test. I mean, going from looking, feeling and behaving like you're 85 to looking and feeling and behaving like you're 25.
You, you can't, that's gotta be the real, uh, what do you call it, the gauge to how to gauge success. Finding a cure for aging has to be getting somebody to pass the Betty White test. And nobody has, nobody has ever come close to passing the Betty White test. Uh, but, uh, a lot of doctors are saying, well, I increased your energy.
I reversed your aging. No, I lengthened your tel and mirrors. I reversed your aging. No, I changed your DNA methylation patterns to a younger type. No, you did not reverse. You only reverse the biomarkers. And so you have the path Betty White [00:40:00] test, but the, uh, so increasing energy is important, but it's not reversing aging.
It's, it's actually just making you healthier. And, uh,
Sawyer Stone: okay. I have a question because I think that, like, just right now, I've had this thought, does Betty White pass her own test?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, no, because she
Sawyer Stone: Or why are, why is she away? She the well, right, right, right, right.
Dr. Bill Andrews: So Betty White, so this is, this is interesting.
Okay. My father was a television producer. Uh, yeah. He was the number one game show television producer for seven straight years, uh, with NBC and A BC and things like that. Uh, and so Betty White was common on game shows. Okay.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: So Betty White would stay at our house all the time. What I knew, I knew Betty.
Oh, yeah. Betty White was a good friend of, I, I taught her how to water ski. I taught her friends how to water ski, things like that. We had houses when my father was a producer. We had houses in Lake Arrowhead and Palm [00:41:00] Springs and Oxnard and things. And so my father would always, because the, these movie stars, that would be the, the celebrities on the game shows.
They would come in and film like five episodes a day. Okay. They would only be shown like once every other day, but they do five episodes a day. And so they had to have a place to stay. So my, my houses that my father had were a lot better than any hotels that tell you,
Sawyer Stone: oh my
Dr. Bill Andrews: God. And so they, they would all say I, I mean, I had the cast of Bonanza.
He was friends with them. The cast of Hogan's Heroes, uh, especially Larry Hovis. He was a big friend of ours, mine and my brother's. Uh, and, uh, God, uh, wild, wild West, uh, Robert Conrad and who, the other guy, I can't. They've been, they were common people. Uh, but you know, I would say my favorites were Larry Hovis, Betty White and Dan Blocker.
Okay. Um,
Sawyer Stone: that is insane.
Dr. Bill Andrews: But, but yeah. But Betty White, she [00:42:00] was always no different than she is on TV on our film. I mean, she was the most entertaining guest we ever had at our house. All the kids, we were all kids at the time. All of us just loved her. 'cause she was nonstop entertaining. Yeah. And I missed her terribly.
But she and I stayed connected. Uh, and when my father passed in 2015, uh, a little over 10 years ago, she, she and I still stayed connected. Uh, she was more interested in me, um, doing something to help her pets. Her dogs and stuff like that. So I, I started working on developing a lot of pet products and, and, uh, hoping so.
She's just
Sawyer Stone: like
Dr. Bill Andrews: us. Yeah. Yeah. She's, yeah. I, my, my dog is sitting behind me here, uh, dash, uh, and, uh, he's so important to me. Just like I saw your cat a few times in the video. Um, yeah. But, uh, yeah, so Betty White [00:43:00] was good friend. I'm ter I always wanted her to be the one that walked out on stage. Looked, felt and behaved 25 again, because nobody in the audience would ever say That's not Betty White.
'cause there is nobody else like Betty White She'll, there'll never be. No,
Sawyer Stone: I agree.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And, uh,
Sawyer Stone: yeah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: but it, it didn't happen because the research just went slower. And I'm not gonna take blame. I, I think. It's the lack of sufficient funding. That's been,
Sawyer Stone: yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Going down.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. Go back to our episode on funding and why didn't
Dr. Bill Andrews: we scientific We, did we do one on that?
I forget.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah, I remember we did a whole episode on like why it's hard to get, um, like cures and stuff passed through and it was all basically the whole, every single time I asked you a question you were like, the answer is funding.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah.
Sawyer Stone: The answer is funding.
Dr. Bill Andrews: That's why cancer is not cured yet.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: exactly.
We talked about that A lot of cancer would be cured by now. 'cause there I know a lot of cancer doctors. Including myself, I was national inventor of the year for my cancer research. I, I know a lot of people that [00:44:00] know exactly what to do. They just can't do it because they don't have enough funding.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Well I really feel like you buried the lead on the Betty White thing. Like we've been talking about the Betty White test the entire season and you're like just holding the, in that you taught Betty White to water ski by. How cool. I, uh, that is so amazing. I love her on Golden Girls. She is like just absolutely perfect.
I don't, even though her character's irritating,
Dr. Bill Andrews: I don't think I could show her pictures. My talks if I didn't have her permission, you know? Uh,
Sawyer Stone: right,
Dr. Bill Andrews: right. Yeah. So, so that's the only reason I
Sawyer Stone: can use, that's just never occurred to me that you asked Betty White to her face if you could use her as an example.
That's crazy. Wow. Very cool. All right, lemme stop fangirling. Okay. Let's see. How can we, as a community simplify the relationship between mitochondrial health a TP, telomeres and aging, so that everyday consumers can speak confidently and enthusiastically about science? [00:45:00]
Dr. Bill Andrews: Your telomeres because that, that helps your mitochondria stay healthy and yes, and make new healthy mitochondria.
Take something like ULI and a, uh, to help get rid of dysfunctional mitochondria and then take the other things that mi substrates that mitochondria need to perform as function. Read Sandra Kaufman's book.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: stay healthy Exercise. Don't Smoke. Don't be obese. That's a and, and
Sawyer Stone: just in general, like try your best to be healthy
Dr. Bill Andrews: and go talk to those, those unknown ultra high net worth individuals that are sitting in their lounge chairs in their million acre properties thinking, I can't wait for somebody to cure my aging
Sawyer Stone: and then
Dr. Bill Andrews: not paying for it.
Nobody is working on curing aging and those women that are can't get the funding that that
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Can do it. And so maybe get them out of their chair and. Start getting, providing some funding to the research, not just aging, cancer, [00:46:00] heart disease, dementia. Yeah. All the things. Everything. Yes.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. Just go bully a billionaire.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yes. The unknown ones. 'cause the unknown ones, I've talked to all the known ones. They all want How long, how soon? So I get a quick return on my investments or
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: How much control do I have? I mean, will you do this instead that? That kind of stuff. So it's gotta be the Yeah. Unknown ones. Really have no motivation except to live longer and spend their money longer.
Right,
Sawyer Stone: right, right, right.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And, and become gazillionaires as a result. 'cause when we have a cure for union Right, they're, they're gonna be gazillionaires. It's just not gonna be as quick a return on,
Sawyer Stone: well, they'll have their whole life to a mass wealth and theyll live forever
Dr. Bill Andrews: return on humanitarian investment, not just return on financial investments.
Sawyer Stone: Right, right. Well, bill, who is the most famous person you have in your phone? Besides the late Ms. Betty White,
Dr. Bill Andrews: oh, oh, there's George Hamilton. Well, George Hamilton, uh, is a good friend. Um, [00:47:00] Betty, uh, Kurt Russell. Goldie ha uh,
Sawyer Stone: oh my God, I wanna be invited to their Christmas.
Dr. Bill Andrews: There are people that I, I've met with, had lunch and, uh, I'll never forget Goldie Ha.
I, I, I shouldn't say what she, what she said to me, but, but, but, but you can say it, we can just cut. It much wants me to cure the aging process. Uh,
Sawyer Stone: yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: But, uh, yeah. I'm, I, I can't think of who they all are, but I I miss a lot of like, uh, Suzanne Summers, uh Oh yeah. Era faucet. Uh,
Sawyer Stone: yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: The, uh, but those are people that, boy, if we had had funding, they could still be alive.
They could still be alive and healthy. Yeah. If funding had started going to the right places. Uh, long, long time ago.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. Well, maybe we'll get it done in time to save Dick Man Dyke.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I hope so, because
Sawyer Stone: God, I love him.
Dr. Bill Andrews: He's not in my phone log, but I wish he was. And another one who I really wanna save is William Shatner.
I Oh my God. I am still in awe that William Shatner. [00:48:00] Walked up those seven flights of stairs to get on that space capsule. I, I mean, it is like unbelievable. I am such a big fan of William Shatner's, uh, and Dick Van Dykes. Uh,
Sawyer Stone: God, that's incredible.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Sophia Lauren, and there's, there's so many superstars. Cher, I mean, you can't get me to stop talking about Cher.
I don't gimme going that
Sawyer Stone: she might pass the Betty White test if we're not careful.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Oh, I hope so. She,
Sawyer Stone: she sort of looks younger every day,
Dr. Bill Andrews: but I, I Ms. Michael Jack Jackson. I Ms. Whitney Houston. Uh, I, I wanna, I don't ever wanna see Miley Cyrus go away. I don't ever wanna see.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Uh, Taylor. Taylor, what's her name?
Uh, I'm blank on her last name. Uh, Taylor Swift. I, I, I just, I'm such big fans of those people. Uh, you know, and now, now my new biggest fan is, is, is, uh, brick Grandpa. I don't know if you know who Brick Grandpa is. I have
Sawyer Stone: no idea who Brick Grandpa is.
Dr. Bill Andrews: He's, he's the brick dancer that is [00:49:00] unbelievable. Lots of videos on him.
Go to social media, look or do Google for Brick. Brick, grandpa. I mean, I've become his biggest fan. Uh, that is
Sawyer Stone: amazing. But
Dr. Bill Andrews: I don't, I wanna see him around forever and, you know. Okay. One other one, I, I don't wanna, since we're getting onto the subject, is, um. Uh, what's his name? Um, uh, David Attenborough. Okay.
Sawyer Stone: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: The
Sawyer Stone: guy that does all the documentaries.
Dr. Bill Andrews: There's, are, there are videos of where I talk about what a terrible loss it would be to the world to lose David Attenborough because nobody's gonna take the baton and,
Sawyer Stone: nah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: not the
Sawyer Stone: same way
Dr. Bill Andrews: they're, they're, they're all gonna want to build their own careers and stuff like that.
So the expression that I really love that David Attenborough said was Rewild the world. And it's really important. I think that that's what's happening. We we're losing species all over the world. I, I say that we're smarter than evolution right now, but we have [00:50:00] lost so many animals because of
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Interaction. And so we need to, we need to make a change. And I'm a big fan of David Attenborough's. I'm a big follower supporter of David Attenborough's. In one documentary, he used the term We need to rewild the world. I like that. And that has been something that has stuck on me ever since. And if we lose David Attenborough, we lose a lot.
And I don't wanna lose David Attenborough. And so I hope one day, see David Attenborough passed the David Attenborough chest. And I wish I knew David Attenborough as well as I know Betty White because he, he would become the new. Uh, Betty White Test, he'd be calling the David Attenborough test, or, or William Shatner, one of those two.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: All right. Well, I, I loved this episode. I thought we just did a, the most fantastic episode, and what a great way to finish the season. Uh,
Sawyer Stone: I know we had a little pop culture corner.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I, we, we, this was fun. We, we actually partied. [00:51:00] We just had a party.
Sawyer Stone: Oh. We had a party. We had a end of season party. Yeah, I agree.
Well, listen, thank you so much for hanging out with me during our first season. I hope that everybody can tune into our pop culture corner with Dr. Bill Andrews. Nobody will believe it, but I just wanna say thanks to everybody, to Dr. Bill, to Taylor, producer and everybody at Walk West. Of course all of our listeners and viewers and peeps out there for hanging out on the list during our first season of Up one
Dr. Bill Andrews: I, it was fun and I can't wait for season two.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah, it'll be good. Alright, well Dr. Bell, it's good to see you and uh, I'll see you next season on Up One.
Dr. Bill Andrews: See you then.
Sawyer Stone: Thanks for joining us on Up one. If you found today's conversation valuable, be sure to subscribe and share this episode with someone who's curious about the real science behind health.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Have a topic you want us to break down. Send us your questions. We're here to help you separate fact [00:52:00] from fiction.
Sawyer Stone: Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and let's keep taking it up one.