Reverse Gray Hair & Boost Energy: The Science of Mitochondria and Anti-Aging with Dr. Martin Picard

This is incontrovertible evidence that graying of hair is reversible and [music] it can be pre-fast.

>> Wow. >> And there's more. So, we all walk around with our biological [music] history

encoded in your hair. Like, for example, if you have marijuana 6 months ago, it's going to be in your hair.

>> He's got a haircut. >> [laughter] >> So, my [music] research lab had the idea

that if we could find what was happening in this person's life when this [music] young hair become old, then we could

understand the mechanism of the aging process. >> So, what is the secret to anti-aging?

>> It's the proper allocation [music] of energy. >> Can you can you How What's the simplest

way you can explain that to me? >> So, first, [music] energy is real and it's the difference between feeling like

you can change the world or feeling completely drained. >> [music]

>> And a lot of people live on that end of the spectrum. And it's because there's a finite energy budget with a hierarchy of

energy needs in the body. For example, we did an experiment because we wanted to know how much energy does it cost to

[music] worry about the future, to ruminate about yesterday. And we found that the stress hormone increased energy

expenditure [music] by 16%. Right? So, it needs to steal energy from some of the things that keep you young.

>> So, it's not the stress [music] that burns us down. It's the response to stress. And the third piece is this,

energy is in your mitochondria. And there's [music] about 5,000 trillion mitochondria in your body. And so, they

made our bodies possible and they can change how you feel. >> Well, I read that studies on brains of

dead people have found that those with greatest sense of purpose have more efficient mitochondria.

>> Yes. We are really in service of the mitochondria. They allow us to be alive. >> And yeah, I've got so many questions for

you based on what people wanted to know. Like, how patients with ME, chronic fatigue, or long COVID safely

rehabilitate their mitochondria. What I consume, how does that impact the efficiency of the energy? Does red light

therapy impact mitochondria? [music] And is there anything I can do to have more energy available? But before that,

I've heard you say that most diseases or disorders can be explained by understanding energy resistance.

>> Yeah. We think there's increased [music] energy resistance in cancer, and then Alzheimer's. Like fundamentally,

diabetes is a disease of energy resistance. >> So, is there anything I can do?

>> There is. So, you can start by >> This is super interesting to me. My team gave me this report to show me how many

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Do we have a deal? If you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make sure

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>> [music] >> Dr. Martin Picard, what is it that you believe, know, or

understand that most people out there don't believe, know, or understand?

>> We are energy. We literally are the energy that's flowing through the body.

>> Mhm. >> And and that sounds a little woo.

>> You don't have context. And And that's I think something that we're just starting to have the right scientific framework

to to understand, to understand ourselves from first principles as energetic processes.

>> In a nutshell, what is it that people are looking for when they

listen to this subject of energy? >> Yeah. I think that people want to understand

what is energy, and how can I have more energy? >> I can relate to that because sometimes,

you know, if I look through my life, sometimes I wake up and I feel amazing. I really have, in my view, done the same

thing. But then sometimes I wake up and I don't feel amazing. And it feels kind of like ruler, like this sort of sort of

opaque mystery of how do I wake up on with more days in a row and feel amazing, like I can take on the world.

And then there's also some friends that I have who are suffering with different things, whether it's chronic illness or

long COVID or whatever, who repeatedly wake up and feel low energy for years, you know, at a time.

>> Yeah. >> That's a really tough place to be when you wake up repeatedly

and and you don't feel like you have the capacity, the energy to be in the world. It's it's a really tough place to be.

>> And and who are you and why did you commit your life to this subject?

>> I'm a regular guy who with, you know, lived experiences who who's gone through some tough things that have taught me

lessons and have gone through wonderful things that have made me feel like life is really special and precious. And then

I became a a scientist and as I learned the tools of science, I started to see and I discovered mitochondria.

I thought, this is an approach to start to bridge what's true about the human experience

that we know from first experience empirically and we know to be real not because, you know, some white coat

wearing doctor or scientist, you know, said, "Yes, energy is real and it's in your mitochondria."

We know it to be real from first experience. Right? Because we we feel it. And then

what science is telling us about how things work in our bodies, right? And about health and and disease and where

diseases come from. So I had these questions. So I became a scientist to bridge those

domains of of existence. The the science and the experience. Um so I've led a research group at Columbia

University for 10 years and founded an institute to really build the systems and

technologies to to help people grow, heal, and and and transform. >> You have a PhD in mitochondria.

>> Yep. My PhD was in mitochondrial biology of aging. >> I mean, there's a an image here in front

of me. Some people will just be listening, so we'll try and explain it for them, but there's an image here of a

video. I'll play the video on screen now, and it kind of looks like a looks a little bit like an alien. But I I I read

that this video was quite formative for you. What is that video, and why was that a formative

moment in your career? >> I took this video in England in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north of

England with my Geordie friends. The medical school there, I was a graduate student and went there for kind

of an exchange, and this is the first time I saw mitochondria moving. I saw like the inner life of our cells.

And when I saw this, something struck me as like, "Oh my god, I'm able to see this, right? And to see

living mitochondria because of the mitochondria inside of me."

>> Mhm. >> It's the energy that's flowing through my mitochondria in my eye, right? That's

allowing me to perceive to see this. Mitochondria made multicellular life possible. They made our bodies possible,

and and we might just be a vehicle for mitochondria to kind of propagate and keep on living. So, when I saw this,

it's like, "This is mitochondria looking at mitochondria." >> Mhm.

>> And then I was starting to understand that mitochondria do more than just transforming energy. What they're known

for is they take the food you eat, and then they take the oxygen that you breathe in, and then those two things,

the food, the oxygen, converge inside the mitochondria. And then something really special happens. The electrons

that are stuck on food that were stuck together in a green leaf somewhere, right? Photosynthesis. What your

mitochondria do is they they kind of unpack this, and they rip off the electrons one by one, and then they flow

them like an electrical circuit. And that happens in the like the 5,000 trillion mitochondria that are in your

body. And then when the electrons flow, they need to flow towards something. Just

like an electrical circuit, electrons flow from one pole of the battery to the negative to to the other pole of the

battery. Uh and that circuit is closed in the mitochondria.

So that the electrons from the food you eat flow towards oxygen that you breathe, and then it becomes water. And

and it's that vital flow of energy, electrons flowing towards oxygen, that allows us to be

alive. And uh mitochondria do this, and then as they do this, they transform energy from food biochemistry into

electricity and into signals and into heat. And the reason the body is warm is because the mitochondria, as they

transform and flow electrons like a little energetic circuit, they release heat. So the the source of heat, right,

that makes us warm, you shake someone's hand, you feel their warmth, you're feeling the warmth from their

mitochondria. >> So is there a mitochondrion every single cell in my body?

>> There's on average 1,000 mitochondria per cell. >> Per cell, there's a thousand

mitochondria. So how many is there in my body? >> About 5,000 trillion.

>> Who should care about the mitochondria and why should they care about it? >> Anyone who cares about their energy.

Right? About having enough energy to do what they really care about. Uh

>> [clears throat] >> we all care about different things. We're we're all gifted and talented for

different things. Uh everyone has this, you know, unique authentic self that wants to come out.

The only way for this to come out, and the only way for a person to flourish, is through energy.

>> [clears throat] >> If there's no energy flowing through your body, you're dead. Right? And if

the energy doesn't flow efficiently, right, and smoothly through you as an organism, then

life feels hard. Like you you're not at your best. You feel tired. Uh and and you feel like

you know, maybe it's not worth it. You know, when you're sick and your immune system is like draining all all your

energy, it's really hard to be optimistic and it's hard to be a good person and it's hard to be a good dad.

And it's hard to want to do good for the world if you're struggling with energy. >> Do you know what it is? So many of us

think that that just is what it is and that we can do nothing about that.

You know, we we breathe in, we eat food and then how we feel is kind of roulette.

>> Yeah. >> There's this certain, I think, feeling a lot of us have that we can't really

control that much. >> Mhm. >> Where do we need to start to understand?

Cuz the outcome I want from this conversation is I want to live my life with more energy to do the things that I

want to do. And I imagine the people that are listening also feel the same way. So, where does one have to start?

I'd like to understand the basics and then move to the actionable stuff, like things I can do so that I live my life

full of energy. >> Yeah. So, there there are three things that are really foundational to how

energy works in the human body. One is that you are the energy that's flowing through this body.

>> I am the energy that's flowing through my body. >> Yes.

>> So, I'm not my body. >> You're not your body. >> Okay, I'm the energy flowing through it.

>> You, Stephen, >> Yeah. >> this expression now that I'm getting to

experience, thank you. >> [laughter] >> This expression is an expression of the

flow of energy. If there was no energy flowing through your body, through your heart, through

your brain, like you wouldn't be, right? You'd be a cadaver and we'd say that Stephen is gone, you know.

>> body. >> Yeah, you'd be a dead body. The difference between a dead body, a

cadaver, and a living, thinking, feeling, conscious person, who cares, is the flow of energy.

>> Okay. >> You you get so indoctrinated in this worldview that the only thing that's

real is the physical stuff. And you know, the nucle- the the genes that you that you got from your parents

and the body the physical body and that's the real stuff. What you can't see with your eyes, not real.

>> Mhm. >> Right? I think that's a reframe that's kind of a a bigger picture mindset shift

that we need to and and scientists struggle with. So, number one is you are the energy that flows and transforms uh

through this body. Number two is there's a fixed energy budget. Right? All of us have a fairly fixed

energy budget to deal with. And and for example, if you want to have more energy to do more podcasts, to write more

articles, to uh you know, be more creative, the solution is not eating more.

Because there's this fixed energy budget. And if you overload the system, you feed it too much food, especially

too much sugar, it's really hard on the system. And then the system, like an electrical system, you jack up the

voltage, right? And then the system starts to overheat. Uh so, inflammation is this this

overheating. There's too much energy in the system. And uh or the cells are are burning too much

energy, and they need to kind of tell other cells that's and those signals we call inflammation

cytokines. >> Mhm. >> So, there's a fixed energy budget that

you have to deal with. And over time, the organism does a lot of of uh finessing and adapting to kind of try to

preserve this energy budget. >> And that's somewhat linked to stress, I guess, which is from I read your work

and it talked about how stress was basically just like an overconsumption of energy. It's It's requiring loads and

loads and loads of energy. >> Yeah. >> Okay, we'll talk about that, too, then,

cuz I think stress is a really important one. What's the third? >> The third one is

life is resistance. In order to be alive, in order to to grow, to learn,

uh to transform, right? Change your views. You need resistance to go through some

resistance. >> Mhm. >> [clears throat]

>> You need energy to go through some resistance. Right? If energy just flows and there's no zero resistance, then

there's no possible transformation. So, if life was always easy >> Mhm.

>> and you never faced any challenge, any stress in your life, then you would just remain as is, right? And and it would be

very boring. And from first principles physics, like we know this to be true, you know, at a number of levels. But,

for example, the sun, this beautiful nuclear reactor in the sky, shoots energy, right? As photons. So,

light is a form of energy. And as long as light, you know, just goes and and photons travels in

outer space, photon will remain photon. Light energy will remain light energy until [clears throat] that light energy

hits a green leaf, right? And the green leaf basically breaks or stops the photon in its path.

So, it's it offers a constraint, right? It offers resistance. So, when light energy faces resistance,

now it can be converted. And that's the basis of making food. That's how nature makes food.

It crystallizes energy from sunlight into molecules. Life, you know, plants crystallize light energy into

carbohydrates. And then those are transformed into the different kinds of food that we eat. We

need resistance for energy to trans- form into something meaningful. >> has the mitochondria got to do with all

of this? >> Mitochondria are basically little resistors, right? And and they are what

allows the flow of energy through the system. >> Have you got a picture of Okay, here we

go. >> Yeah. >> Okay, so this is a an image of a

mitochondria. A mitochondrion o n is a singular. Okay. >> is plural. Yeah. So, this is a

mitochondrion and there's about a thousand of these in each of your cells. >> Okay.

>> And there's about 5 trillion cells in your body uh that have a nucleus and that have these beautiful mitochondria.

And what you see here, these little wings, these are called cristae. And the cristae is where the food you

eat end up and where the oxygen you breathe end up as well. So, this is where the electrons are flowing. There's

like little electrical circuits here. And as the electrons are flowing, the mitochondria become charged like little

batteries. So, effectively a mitochondrion like this has all of these sites of oxygen consumption and and food

consumption and then that gets transformed into a little charge battery. And once

the battery is charged, the mitochondria can use that charge to make ATP, adenosine triphosphate, which

is kind of the the cellular energy currency. If a cell wants to contract, right, a muscle cell wants to contract

in the gym, it needs ATP. So, it calls upon the mitochondria, it says, "I need ATP." And then the mitochondria gets to

work and then flows electrons, consumes some food, burns some oxygen, that's why you get out of breath. All right, so

when you get out of breath it's because the mitochondria are using the oxygen and calling for more oxygen. What we've

been discovering is that mitochondria do a lot more than just making ATP. >> Okay.

>> They use their their energized state to produce signals, to receive information and then to

produce signals. >> Oh, so they're talking to each other. >> They're talking to each other.

>> And what are they saying? >> They're they're it's a whole collective and and they're talking to each other,

kind of monitoring what's happening not only inside the cell but outside the cell. So, on the surface of

mitochondria, all along there are little receptors for all sorts of signals that tells this mitochondrion, is there

enough energy? Is there are we running out of energy? Is there a stress hormone here? Should we be getting ready for,

you know, something dangerous? So, mitochondria are like like a little distributed brain.

Right? So, they're like the intracellular brain. >> Am I right in thinking that they used to

be bacteria? >> They are. Yeah, they did Yeah. >> What what is that story?

>> [laughter] >> Cuz I think someone said that to me before on the show that our mitochondria

are actually bacteria that from prehistoric times or something. >> So, the story is about 1.5 billion years

ago that there was two different types of bacteria.

One type was able to use oxygen to transform energy, right? So, it could fuel along oxygen and and other food

substrates. The other type could not. It was anaerobic. And the anaerobic bacterium was probably

a little bigger and it had like a a few more genes, um and it could only ferment its food

and kind of fermenting the food, spitting out, you know, like lactate or like yeast does. And what happened is

the big one either engulfed the small one, right? Or maybe the small one kind of

infiltrated, colonized the big one. And the story goes uh that this basically gave a whole bunch more energy to the

big cell. That's one perspective. And then with more energy, what can you do? You can

evolve more complexity. The version I I favor, based on the evidence we have, is that when

mitochondria came in and then they they there was this new structure, this symbiotic relationship, mitochondria

basically gave the ability of the cell to perceive the environment in a different way and to compute information

in a different way. So, maybe the the the coming of of mitochondria into this big cell

made the big cell social. Because before this event, most of the evidence says that cells were asocial. They were

little bacteria foraging for for for themselves and you know, kind of operating from a very selfish

uh perspective. Just trying to replicate, you know, just trying to survive. When mitochondria came in, it

like gave those cells a different view on life. And they're like, "Ooh, we could work together. How about you

become a cell that gets energy, right? And I become a cell that uh moves, right? So then you're the gut and I'm

going to be the muscle." And and then then together those two cells can do a lot more, right?

>> And fast forward a couple billion years and here we are. >> Here we are, yeah. And and that led to,

you know, bodies with organs, you know, the liver feeds the rest of the body, the heart keeps things flowing, the

brain kind of computes and and plans. Uh so that's division of labor. It's uh and it started with the mitochondria.

>> You you talked about energy resistance. I've heard you say that most diseases or disorders can be explained by

understanding energy resistance. Give me a a disease that's linked to energy resistance.

>> The clearest is what we call insulin resistance or diabetes.

Right? Diabetes affects millions in the world. Fundamentally, diabetes is a disease of energy resistance. Uh so, if

your resistance is too high >> Because >> Because you have

um too much energy pushed onto the system. >> Sugar, too much sugar, glucose.

>> Yeah, exactly. Or if the mitochondria are impaired, right? They can't flow energy, then the the the the energy is

kind of stuck. It faces greater constraints. Like it wants to go in that direction, but then there's a

barrier and then another barrier, another barrier. It's like water flowing, right? Nice and and and and and

smooth, and then there's like a dam. Right? And if the dam has zero um openings, right? Then the the the

water accumulates and then there's high pressure. And then at some point, the the water accumulates and ends up

flooding the the landscape and then damaging things. So, it's a bit of like the same thing. If now you open

floodgates on the dam, right? Then then you can use that energy to make electricity, for example. You use the

the movement of the water to transform this into electricity. That's basically what the mitochondria do.

Uh and if you move and you're physically active, now the flow of energy through the mitochondria can transform into

work, right? Into speed, into uh movement, right? Into lifting. >> Is this linked to cancer at all? Because

it sounds I mean, I don't know much about cancer, but cells dividing out of um control

seemingly randomly >> Yeah. I think that there's a very good chance, if you look at the biology of

cancer and what scientists call the hallmarks of cancer there's like a a 10-item flywheel of these are the core

features of of cancer. Uh all of those features have some relationship, some very direct, with increased energy

resistance. Right? So, if energy can't flow smoothly and a cell uh is, you know, burning too much energy

and it and it doesn't flow energy through the mitochondria, which is what cancer cells do. Cancer cells ditch

their mitochondria and they revert back to this ancestral, you know, cell that didn't have mitochondria. It was

anaerobic. It was spitting out lactate. And we don't really know why cells do this. It's called the Warburg effect.

And the Warburg effect is when a cell, in the presence of oxygen, right? If it wanted, it could use oxygen, flow

electrons through mitochondria, and transform energy, and and live a nice social life, uh like every cell in in

this social collective does in the body. Uh what cancer cells do is they say,

"I'm not going to use my mitochondria, even if there's oxygen, even if my mitochondria can respire." And by doing

this, it seems like cancer cells revert back to this ancestral

cell, right? That that just cares about itself. >> So, an antisocial cell.

>> Yeah. Then the the the organism will in the tumor will try to make more blood vessels around it. Right, it's called

angiogenesis. So, it's like the the cancer cell trying to decrease energy resistance. It says, "Bring me more

oxygen." >> So, it's kind of like there's this sort of alien all of a sudden that decides it

no longer wants to work with the rest of the organism, and that it's going to be selfish, and demand more and more

resources for itself. >> Mhm. >> And it multiplies itself Yeah. With

equally selfish little aliens? >> Yeah. >> And then the body responds by

listening to it and giving it more resources? Is that what you're saying? >> Why do the blood vessels surround the

cancer? >> Yeah, it's like it's the cancer calling for, you know, more energy.

>> Okay. >> Yeah. So, energy resistance is the product of

two things. Is how much energy is being demanded, right? Like how much power is being deployed in in the in the tumor,

for example, or in the working muscle. Uh and then how much energy is can flow through the system. It's like the

equivalent of current in an electrical system. So, if there's a lot of demand, right, a lot of power is being generated

or a lot of activity is happening like in a cancer cell, but there's not enough flow to to to to support that activity,

then that increases resistance. >> So, is there any understanding as to how those kind of cancers are caused? Like,

what what causes that moment where, you know, you talked about the Warburg effect? What causes that?

>> The cancer community used to think that dominant driver for cancer was genetic mutations, but there's an emerging

perspective that changes in metabolism, changes in the way electrons flow through through this energetic

circuitry, through the mitochondria, can actually drive the instance of a of a new cancer cell. And

then when it a cell becomes cancerous, ditches its its mitochondria, it goes back to this selfish state, and then it

makes more of itself. >> And it tries not to die. Explain that part to me cuz I was reading about how

cancer cells try to evade death. >> Yeah, the best way to think about this, I think, is as a a social collective,

right? Every cell in this organism cares about the same thing, which is pres- preserving the the life and and

the health of the whole being, right? So, [clears throat] every cell in in this body is in a social contract with

every other cell. Right? A cancer cell basically

gets out of this agreement and says, "No, no, I'm going to fare for myself. I'm going to take all the energy I can

and I'm going to make more of myself and it it goes into, you know, bacterial mode." That happens

sometimes because of mutations and it seems like there there other causes of this. Like, for example, hyperglycemia.

>> What's that? >> High blood glucose. >> Mhm.

>> Right? Diabetes is a major risk factor for developing

cancer. Why is that? I don't think there there are good

explanations out there based on like the molecular framework of of disease and you know the the genetic

mutation perspective. If you look at cancer from an an energetic perspective and

it's I think likely that the increase in blood glucose increases the pressure, right? There's more electrons that are

being pushed onto those cells or to those mitochondria. And when you push too much energy on a system that doesn't

need energy, it's like you're trying to shove, you know, a lot of of water through a very small pipe.

>> Something goes wrong. >> Yeah, something goes wrong. Something something can break.

So the the resistance is if you push a lot of energy into a very small, you know, container or into a a

channel that can support that, then the the what happens kind of physically is an increase in in the resistance to the

flow. And then that can lead to the cell trying to protect itself.

That's what insulin resistance is in diabetes, right? Insulin resistance is a protection mechanism. There's too much

glucose being pushed onto the cell, right? And so that causes this excess, you know, energy coming in. The cell

says, "Whoa, you know, too much." And it damages the mitochondria, this excess resistance, because there's too much

heat produced, reactive oxygen species, oxidative stress. >> I was thinking about smoking and how

smoking also is carcinogenic. It's cancer causing. And through the lens of the mitochondria, how could something

like smoking be cancer causing? >> Yeah.

It's clear that in cigarette smoke, there are carcinogens. They're molecules that can damage the

genome and cause mutations. It there's a strong link between lung cancer and smoking, but for all of the

other cancers, there's much less of a a clear connection between exposure and cancer.

Right, the cancers that that affect and and kill most people, we don't really know

why they come, when they come. And it's clear that there's kind of a long history. And

uh the the science behind, you know, connecting metabolism and cancer shows

that obesity and uh high blood glucose and diabetes especially, which causes very high, you

know, excursion I I have very high spikes in in blood glucose, those things are damaging to ourselves. And what the

energy resistance principle says is that biology processes energy in terms of resistance.

And it makes that kind of computation. How much energy is flowing now? And then how much how much energy demand and how

much energy pressure am I exposed to? And if there's an imbalance, then that uh causes damage.

>> Rather than being innocent bystanders, mitochondria are hijacked by cancer. The tumor re-programs them to stop acting

like the body's protective energy factories and starts using them as a manufacturing plant to build more cancer

cells. Because of this, targeting mitochondrial metabolism has become a major promising frontier in developing

new cancer therapies. >> Mhm. >> It hijacks the the mitochondria and uses

them to produce more cancer cells. Mhm. >> So, a normal cell

uh is driven, its behavior it's driven by the mitochondria. It's like mitochondria

are in the driver's seat. Right? Mitochondria can basically call the shots. If is the cell to live and

divide, right? Or is the cell to contract and remain this kind of cell? Or if it's a stem cell, is it to divide

or remain a stem cell? Uh or is it to die? Right? And cells have to make these decisions all the time. And cell suicide

for the greater good is something that happens all the time in our bodies. And that's why and how we get rid of of most

cancer cells, right? As far as we understand, you have a cell that kind of defects from the social collective, and

then the organism has the wisdom to say, "Okay, this is no longer ours. Let's get rid of it." Right? Because it could

become cancer. And most of the time that works well. Uh but what cancer cells can do is say, "Okay, I'm They They ditch

their mitochondria and then they start to use them for their own growth." Uh and by ditching their mitochondria, they

basically immunize themselves against the death that mitochondria could could trigger. So, mitochondria have a veto on

cell life or death, and cancer somehow is able to kind of get away from that. >> And it's it's it's weird to think about

because yeah, the things that are cause cancer or that have a correlation to cancer are things like, you know,

as you said, like having too much of this stuff here. Too much sugar. >> stuff, yes.

>> High blood glucose levels, etc., are linked to cancer. And one would wonder why

eating sugar in excess is going to increase my probability of cancer, but obviously it points to the fact that it

must be doing something to my energy systems which are causing some kind of malfunction somewhere.

>> Yeah. And what the energy resistance principle allows us to understand is why that is

and what's really happening. If you overload your body with excess energy,

your body has to deal with this. And in a simple electrical system circuit, if you jacked up, you know, the voltage and

the system is is too weak to take this, then resistance goes through the roof, the transistors start to melt, and then

the system, you know, it gets gets damaged. >> Mhm.

>> The The same thing happens, you know, in the body. If you overload the system with too much energy, too many

electrons, right? Very direct parallel with the electrical circuit. There electrons stuck here on these little

glucose molecules. If you ingest this, now increases the voltage in the body. And then if the mitochondria can't keep

up and because they're they're not flowing energy because you're sedentary, you're you're not moving, um then that

increases the resistance. All right? And then >> And it might die or malfunction.

>> Correct. Or things get damaged, right? The The clear connection here is too much energy, increased energy

resistance. So, then the electrons that normally flow smoothly in your metabolism, right? From the food to your

mitochondria, then that whole circuit becomes more resistive. And then if you're an

electron and you're trying to go through the the metabolic pathways looking for oxygen in a mitochondrion, but then

at every [clears throat] at every point in this cascade you face resistance, there's more chance that

that electron kind of jets out and and then becomes oxidative stress. >> Well, then what's what's going on with

aging? I've got two women in front of me and they have two different colors of hair. Now, let's just pretend for

argument's sake and for the sake of this explanation that this is someone's hair that's gone gray because of stress.

Um and this is what she used to look like or he used to look like in terms of the color of the hair.

What I found really interesting cuz it kind of speaks to lots of things that are going on going

on in the body is you're saying you can actually reverse gray hair

without dyeing it. And if so, what does that tell us about what gray hair is, but more broadly about stress, energy,

mitochondria, and everything in between? >> Yeah. Uh what we discovered is that hair

graying is reversible. And and that was surprising because what I've learned and what most people learn is that when you

age it's kind of this linear progressive decline and and there's kind of nothing you can do about it. Uh but it turns out

that if you look on most people's head, um you can see things like this. This is

obviously, you know, this was dyed and all of the hairs were were white and then all the hairs are are are dark. And

if you take a hair like this, uh the tip here, right, was inside the body long time ago. This is almost like if you

look at tree rings, right? You take a tree and you cut it in cross-section, you see like the rings, and then you can

say, "Ooh, this ring was uh 30 years ago, right?" And this ring is today. Uh so, you can use that to

kind of map the history of what happened in the environment of of the tree. You can do the same thing. We all walk

around with biological history crystallized in in this hair. And that's why if you want to know if someone had a

a drug, for example, like a month ago or 6 months ago or like 2 years ago, depending how long the hair is, you can

actually use the hair and all along would be, you know, the chemical signature of what you took. So you can

find marijuana in in the hair, you know, here but not here. So if you if you have marijuana

6 months ago, it's going to be in your hair and you're going to walk around uh, with that trace, that physical trace in

in your body. >> He's got hiccups. >> [laughter]

>> And the idea was if we could find hairs on someone's head that the tip was

uh, dark, right? And then when you look closer to the body, it becomes white. Right? And you would say the hair was

young, it was young, it was young, it was young, and then boom, it became old, right? It It lost color. Hair graying is

a a a classic hallmark of aging. Um, then we thought then you would know something that something was happening

in this hair follicle in this person's body, right? That made this young hair become old. And then maybe we could

understand the mechanisms of the aging process. So this became a kind of an interesting scenario. And through doing

this, we found people started to send us hair samples in Ziploc bags, you know, over the mail. Uh, and we were looking

for two-colored hairs, a single hair that has two colors, kind of like this. Uh, and we found the hairs that

uh, you know, head hair, beard hair, pubic hairs that showed the signature. The hair was dark and then it became

white or the hair was white and it became dark again. >> Mhm.

>> So we had physical evidence from like multiple people that showed white hairs can go back to being dark. And this

contradicted this idea that, you know, aging is this linear progressive process that we're kind of doomed to experience

without any flexibility. I was one of the participants in that study. I ended up finding five hairs that had this

pattern. And when we looked at when the reversal happened, we found that the reversal happened when I went on

vacation. And I would go back in those days on annual

uh cycling uh training camps. So, I would go for a week where all you do is you bike, you eat, you sleep. Uh energy

started to move very differently in my body during that that time. Um and then when we looked at the hair

and we analyzed the the composition, the molecular composition, that's what scientists do. You can take a hair like

this, snip the pieces, the white segment, the dark segment, it's all the same genome, right? Every hair has the

same genome, the same genetic material, same food, uh same physical activity, same everything. Why some hairs grow

like this or like that uh was an opportunity to understand the dynamics, the plasticity, like how life

can go from being young to old or old back to young. Uh and what we found was a the main signal was a mitochondrial

signal. And in the white hair, I thought there's going to be less color, right?

Obviously, but also probably less mitochondria, less, you know, some other things. We found that the white hairs

have more mitochondria. And there was an upregulation of the body that the hair follicle where the

hair was becoming old wasn't kind of letting go of things. It was doing more. >> So, that means during that period of

time, you were more stressed and using more energy? >> When cells become old, instead of just

dying, right? They struggle. And when a cell has damage in the DNA or the mitochondria not working properly or

for some reason they accumulate damage and become old, the cell struggles to make more mitochondria. And it it tries

to kind of compensate. And then ends up wasting a lot of energy in the process.

>> So, when that hair what you looked at that was gray, let's call it, um it had more mitochondria because it was

struggling. And why was it struggling? >> It looks like the stress hormones can,

you know, make a cell struggle, for example. >> Cortisol?

>> Cortisol, yes. If you're a cell, right, and your perspective on the world is pretty simple.

You don't have, you know, the senses that, you know, we we enjoy, but you do, nevertheless, you know, sense the

environment. If cortisol comes and you get the signal, it means there's something out there in

the environment that's dangerous. Right, you should be preparing for having to fight or to flight or

there's something out there that's dangerous. Our cells evolved to interpret cortisol in that way.

So, we did an experiment in the dish. We wanted to know how much energy does it cost to worry about the future?

Right? Or how much energy does it cost to ruminate about yesterday? >> Mhm.

>> The thing you didn't do or the mistake you made at work or >> [laughter]

>> that conversation that went sideways, you know, with your partner. How much energy does that cost to be

thinking about this, to be, you know, engaging your stress system, to be releasing cortisol?

So, two students in a lab, Gabriel and Natalia, did that experiment. You put You put cells in a dish. You give them

the equivalent of cortisol. How much energy is going to cost for these cells to prepare? There's nothing damaging

to the cortisol itself, but the cortisol is a signal that there might be something dangerous outside. Right,

that's like when you're sitting down, you get an email, you're like, "I might lose my job, right?" Or "I

might not get this contract." And then you you have this whole stress response. Your heart starts to beat

faster. How much energy does that cost? So, in cells in a dish, we can isolate that question really well. We found that

the stress hormone increased energy expenditure, at the cost of life, by 60%.

>> So, when I'm stressed, I'm using 60% more energy, theoretically. >> I don't know about you, but cells in a

dish. >> [laughter] >> Okay.

>> So, there the beauty about like bodies and, you know, with the mind and, you know, just complex organism. They're

buffering systems, right? So, you might Yeah, I don't think your energy expenditure increased by 60% if you're

stressed out, but it increases somewhat. >> What is that graph there? >> So, there two graphs here.

The top one is the color of the hair of a single hair from a young Asian woman who was part of the study. And what we

see here, this is called a hair pigmentation pattern, the HPP that we we developed in the lab to understand

quantitatively bring science to the to hair graying and and reversal. And so, what you see here is this hair was dark

and then it became white for 2 cm and then boom, completely regained color. Actually, it regained It

was darker here than it than it used to be, right? And then stayed dark afterwards. So, this is a hair that we

received in the mail as we were starting to to collect two-colored hairs.

And then when we when we saw this, we had found from a few different people white hairs that had regained color.

We'd never seen a hair like this. That's dark, white, and then dark, right? So, I remember holding this hair. I was like,

"Oh my god." This is in the same hair. This is incontrovertible evidence that graying

of hair is reversible and it can be pretty pretty fast. Like this transition here is just a few weeks. This is about

1 week. Right? So, this white hair, completely white, regained color in just about a week. So, then we developed an

instrument which was a simple sheet. On the Y axis, the vertical is most stressful thing that ever happened to

you, no stress at all. 10 and zero. And then the X axis, the horizontal, was time. Yes.

On the far right is now, right? This is now, this is a year ago. And then we labeled all the months.

And then we asked people and we asked this lady put a dot on the graph that was the most stressful time in the past

year. Like anyone can do the exercise, past year, most stressful time. Okay, maybe last March. And then you put

a dot right in March, number 10. And then least stressful part, uh zero. And then put other like meaningful things

that happened that were challenging. So people put dots, you know, along the this last year, then connect the dots,

right? The red graph is her dots connected. >> And it correlates perfectly to her hair

going gray. >> Correct. And what happened to her life, she said

she finished her PhD thesis and she was jobless, but she was fine. She was happy to be done with her studies and then

broke up with her boyfriend. >> Oh, damn, and her hair went gray. >> Yeah. Broke up with her boyfriend. She

didn't know what was happening with her life. She had to travel to Europe. There was some family drama.

Uh she said these were the last the most stressful 2 months of my life. >> There's a killer question here, which is

if that remains chronic, does that hair follicle go gray forever? >> Yeah.

>> I if I go through a a stressful period for 2 to 3 weeks and my hair goes a bit gray, as long as I get out of that

stressful period as quick as possible, does that hair then return to to black or dark?

>> Yeah. >> Do you see what I'm saying? >> Yes. It seems like and we ran some like

fancy mathematical model to understand why this would be possible, why it could happen like now for this

hair and then be reversible, but we know it, you know, very well. If you have a full head of gray hair and you're 70

years old, you're not going to regain your color. >> Yeah.

>> So there seems to what the model the mathematical model suggested is that there's a window of opportunity,

right? Where a hair slowly accumulates damage, becomes more and more probably energetically inefficient, right? So

there's more and more energy resistance, and then there's a barrier. And then when the the hair hits that threshold,

now it loses color. >> It's done. >> Yeah. But then if something changes in

the body, right? You go on a vacation or you start to do intermittent fasting and then there's more energy available for

your dark hair, now it can be reversed, right? Because you can go back up against that threshold. But then

eventually this hair is going to go gray again. And then if you're way way down, like this hair turned gray 10 years ago

and you go back up, you're too far away from threshold to regain color. >> Okay.

>> So it suggests to some threshold model that there's a window of opportunity for some something as binary as hair color.

It's a black or it's white, right? So there's kind of a window of opportunity there where

>> where you can reverse gray hair. >> Yes. >> I do want to come back to this hair

thing, but it did make me think cuz you you added a layer of nuance there, which is about the mind.

>> Mhm. >> Like if I go through my life um with a more resilient mind and you get that bad

email and you go and I get the bad email and I go it, who cares?

>> Yeah. >> Am I therefore going to be a way more productive person throughout those 24

hours because my mitochondria are using less energy because there's less cortisol?

>> Yeah. Based on what we know, I think that's likely correct. So it's not the stress that burns us

down, it's the response to stress. And nothing is free in biology. And for your heart to beat a little faster, if you

mount a response to that email, right? You're burning energy in your heart. And then

>> [clears throat] >> you're tensing your you know, your your shoulder, that's burning energy. Now

your brain is going into like rumination mode and then this thing and then then it makes you think about your childhood

and this and like and then the anx- the anxiety and then you start to sweat. Like everything costs energy.

>> So the chain of events is I get the email. It's a very bad email. Says you're fired, Steven, from the BBC. We

found a different host. >> Yeah. >> Um I look at the email.

That goes into my psychology, my mind. I then have a story I tell myself about what that email means for me, my future,

my children, whatever. Which then causes a physiological response of like chemicals like

cortisol. >> Yeah. >> Um which goes into my cells, my

mitochondria, which then have to work a little bit harder or use more energy. >> Mhm.

>> Which is ultimately then going to mean that I'm more tired because I have a finite

amount of energy per day. >> Mhm. >> Is that Is that sequence of events I I

ask about that sequence because it offers me an opportunity to intervene at some point.

>> Yes. Yes. >> That's it. Right, when you think about it.

>> [laughter] >> Or I get a little bit better with bad news.

>> Yeah, or you know, learn to be less reactive, right? Or learn to to feel and and

um, you know, sit with be aware of that reaction cuz the key solution to kind of to cutting that

sequence of event that ends up draining you is to become aware of it. >> Yeah, become aware of it. Yeah.

>> All right? Uh, so you can kind of interrupt this and people who study contemplative practices and and

meditation and you know, mindfulness approaches, I think many of them think this is kind

of the key, right? The the the awareness, the somatic awareness or interoception. So if you feel into your

your bodily responses, you become free of do I mount a response? Is that needed now or not?

>> There's different types of stress, right? There's like the acute stress, which is just you get the email, you

feel a little bit of a spike, but 5 minutes later you're fine. >> Yep.

>> And then there's the more chronic type of stress where you're waking up every day with the same

feeling of stress deep inside you for many many days in a row, many weeks in a row.

>> Yeah. >> Um, I hear that acute stress isn't all that bad and it's very normal and

useful, but it's this chronic stress that can cause a lot of damage. >> Yeah, and I think that brings us back to

the concept of how is energy flowing through the body? And if it flows with not enough resistance, you can't

survive, but if there's too much resistance, then you you get drained. >> How do I think about this resistance

thing cuz I'm really struggling with like understanding it? >> Maybe one good example to to frame this

is exercise. >> Yeah. >> All right? When you start to exercise,

there's increased resistance in your muscle, right? Your muscles are contracting, so there's a physical

resistance there, but there's also energy resistance. So, the the energy is trying to flow through the muscle, and

then there's you have mitochondria. If you have just a few mitochondria and the muscles are contracting really hard,

like you're running, you're sprinting, right? You're doing interval training. Um now, the mitochondria don't have the

capacity to flow as much energy as the muscle is asking. Right? So, that's an imbalance of demand

to flow capacity. Now, the the product of this, the demand divided by flow capacity, is resistance.

>> Okay. >> So, if you demand a lot of your muscle because of your your your sprint, uh but

you you don't have a lot of mitochondria, right? It's going to feel terrible. Uh and then because the

resistance creeps up, and then your muscle, you know, becomes really hot, and then eventually there's

inflammation, uh and then it burns, and then then it's uncomfortable.

Uh but then So, that's like an acute bout of of energy resistance. What happens with

exercise is once you recover, right? The benefits of exercise don't happen during the exercise, they happen after, during

the recovery. So, if you recover, now you're you're the muscles are relaxing, and you're resting, eventually you go,

you know, for you go to sleep. Uh it's the in during the decrease in the resistance, now the cell says, "Next

time this happens, I better be ready. Like this was really uncomfortable. It was too much energy shoved into a system

that couldn't take it. Right? So, I need I'm going to make more mitochondria." So, that That's what happens if you go

from being a sedentary couch potato, right? To training for a marathon. You can double the amount of mitochondria

you have in your muscles. And that's the system feeling the the rise in resistance, like I don't have

the capacity to flow that much energy, and then adapting for this for the next time. It

said, "Next time I'm going to be ready. Let's make more mitochondria." So, that's probably what where the benefits

of exercise come from. This the spiking and and why stress is is not a bad thing intrinsically, right? If you have a

spike of stress, it stimulates the process the the the it stimulates the body to put in place things that in the

long run makes you more efficient, decreases your resistance. Then you can go through life with with less

resistance. >> Coming back to this gray hair thing. So, if if we consider gray hair, my hair

going gray, to be the last domino that fell. So, like the symptom.

>> Yeah. >> Then what is what are the what what is the first domino?

>> Mhm. >> And can you walk me through the sequence of events? Because one would assume that

if I understand that sequence of events, I can also understand how to then reverse it.

>> Yeah. >> How to kind of take I've got a couple of gray hairs now. And I actually

anecdotally do think, weirdly now you've said this, that I have like gray hair flare-ups

where I'll go I'll, you know, go through a couple of weeks or months of doing something and I'll look in the mirror

and be like, "What? I have 12 now?" I'm being generous there. There's more like 25. [laughter]

I have I have 25 now. In terms of those dominoes, the symptom is gray hair. What is the first domino that that falls? And

what is the sequence of events that leads to the gray hair in the follicle? >> So, there's a finite energy budget.

>> Mhm. >> And then what the organism does is it allocates energy in different places,

like a business, right? You have this budget, do I put more energy here? If do I put, you know, more resources here? If

so, I need to take resources away from here, right? So, as stress happens in your life, it pulls energy away from

some of the things that keep you young. Right? So, there's there's a kind of a hierarchy of energy

needs in the body. Not everything can be prioritized the same way. You know Maslow's hierarchy of human needs?

>> Yeah. >> Yeah? So, Maslow's insight was uh >> Oh my god, I just freaked out. My hand

reached down and I just felt someone's head. It was just

I just >> Acute stress response. >> Yeah, I just [laughter] got Yeah, caught

off guard. Sorry. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. >> Yeah.

So, there's there's a hierarchy of energy needs in the body that's works similarly to Maslow's hierarchy of

needs. Maslow said, "Uh for a human being to be fully realized, first, you need to have safety and food and shelter

secured, right?" Once you have this and you feel this is kind of covered in your life, then you can start to think about

building relationships with other people, right? Loving relationships. Once you have this settled, now you can

start to think about building your skills, right? Like becoming really good at something. Uh and then once you have

this covered, now you can devote energy to the more frivolous things like spirituality, what do you call

self-actualization, and kind of becoming your best self, flourishing. Uh so, he saw this very much as a this is this

needs to be covered uh and when things get really hard and there are constraints on your life, the first

thing to go is the top of the pyramid, right? Your meditation practice or the long-term type like I'm going to be a

better person. No, like I need to make sure we can put food on the table next week, right? Um so, this hierarchy of of

human needs, I think, aligns with hierarchy of uh of energy needs in the body. And as

far as the importance of hair color goes, it's pretty low on the hierarchy. So, as the body gets older and you have

more and more cells in the body that start to uh be less efficient, right? Their

mitochondria are working a little, you know, less efficiently and uh and then there there's more

inflammation in the body that's costing energy, and uh there's

more worries about, you know, professional obligations and all these things kind of stack up and steal energy

away from the things that are there. We call them growth, maintenance, and repair. These are like the anti-aging

processes in in the body. And those need energy, but they're not as important as you know, facing the stressor that you

think is life-threatening now. >> So, if there's a lion chasing me, my body's going to commit all the the

energy I have to getting away from this lion and it might say, "Listen, Stephen, we're not going to repair the skin next

to your eyes. You're going to get a couple more wrinkles and we're not going to make your We're not going to commit

energy to making sure your follicles in your hair produce black pigment or whatever."

>> Exactly. >> So, I would then look aged. I would look old older.

>> But, that's because all of my energy's been going to something else which my body considers to be a higher priority.