Mitochondria (including Naviaux): what are the implications for resting schedules?

[taniaaust1]

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Something that I'm wondering about is since mitochondria act within individual cells in tissues such as muscle, how would my reading a book while lying down resting my muscles (using brain cells not muscle cells) impact on the recovery of the electron transport happening within a muscle cell.

Maybe that's a silly question -after all when we use our muscles, we inevitably engage the brain too, though not necessarily the same parts of the brain.

think back to the original post which Sasha put up which started this thread

The electron transport chain (ETC) is inhibited because it is full of iron-sulfur clusters, and iron-sulfur clusters are damaged by ROS, or reactive oxygen species, which include nitric oxide (NO) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) among others, i.e. oxidative stress. This is why you can't make enough ATP to have a normal life - the ETC is inhibited.

The ETC also produces ROS; this is normal. A healthy person can create enough proton motive force to make ATPandenough NADPH to get rid of the ROS, but a person with CFS can't. There are other pathways to make NADPH in the mitochondria, but NNT is the major one and probably normally produces about 50% of the NADPH.

So we have to keep ROS levels as low as possible to allow the body to produce ETC complexes (those are the ETC enzymes) with fewer damaged iron-sulfur clusters. Every minute of consecutive activity the ROS levels are increasing, and the rest breaks give the body a chance to lower the ROS levels

So though you are resting your body while laying down reading a book, your brain is still producing ROS while reading that book, so the body isnt getting this down as fast cause of that book reading. So that ROS is still being produced and hence still damaging electron transport chains of all your cells

 

[taniaaust1]

@Chris may I ask how long you've been ill? Sasha, this is on topic, the question has to do with the duration of illness, and since this resonates with Chris it would be interesting to compare short term and long term mito function.

Years ago I saw a great article on mito function and exercise (which was pages long) in the Readers Digest. I really wish I'd copied it (the mag was in the doctors clinic and I didnt want to be seen ripping out the pages). I remember it made a lot of sense with things at the time.

 

[taniaaust1]

The two week thing sounds very interesting, but I wonder if it is really the single master key? The 15m rest after 15m activity sounds like another intuitively relevant one.

the 15 mins to 15 mins would have to be different for different people as when the mitochondria has been studied in us, it has been found though we have issues with function there in this illness, we vary to degrees of misfunction (was it Dr Sarah Myhill who did the mito study? It may be worth while taking another look at this) .

Someone who's mito is worst then another one would think would gain damage faster (shorter activity time) and also take longer to improve (longer rest periods). Maybe someones could be working at 40% while anothers at 80%. (I cant remember ratios of damage or anything like that now)

 

[taniaaust1]

I have found meditation to be immensely helpful for the wired but tired feeling, though it is not a quick fix. Low dose naltrexone has also been hugely beneficial for my overactive nervous system - probably more than meditation.

my brain waves on EEG show classic ME patterns where it doesnt slow down as it should at rest even when I have my eyes shut etc, I dont get a normal brain wave pattern to that. This doesnt allow me to meditate properly.

Im a yogi so meditation used to be part of my normal daily routine a couple of times per day, I didnt understand at all why with the ME I stopped me from being able to meditate until I had my brain scans done and then it made so much sense.

 

[Mij]

I personally dont think you should be doing any power walking till you've worked out your safe daily activity limits in which you arent crashing (can you go a couple of weeks without crashing?) and only then introduce some exercise. Maybe one which doesnt get the heart rate up fast at first and introducing it slowly.. till you can know how much you can safely do of exercise of a daily level.

I have worked it out and as long as i don't get PEM the next day then I feel I'm not going over, I've been doing this for years but that's not to say it's ok which is why I've decided to cut back to be safe. I don't power walk for weeks on end, it really depends on how I feel and with menopause now I don't can't walk much at all, the energy production is just not there.

By 'crashing', do you mean PEM? I haven't had PEM for over one year because I'm managing my energy and getting adequate rest. When I get viral/immunological periods I can't do anything anyways so I don't do too much.

I guess I'm giving the impression that I'm out there walking and being active which isn't the case.

 

[Mij]

I wonder if combining resting with less eating will be helpful. If our metabolism is only say 30 % efficient and we eat normal portions, that has to overburden the system and possibly damage it even more. I try to take as long a break as possible between meals and to keep my mind distracted when I get hungry, I try to do small chores. I find that I am lot more energetic during these times.

I feel eating less makes a difference too, we use less energy to digest and therefore have more in the tank. I don't starve myself but try to eat only up to 1/2 to 3/4 fullness.

 

[taniaaust1]

By 'crashing', do you mean PEM? I haven't had PEM for over one year because I'm managing my energy and getting adequate rest. When I get viral/immunological periods I can't do anything anyways so I don't do too much.

I wasnt meaning by crashing as necessarily PEM but any kind of ME worsening at all eg it could be an immune system crash eg for me it can be a sore throat or other signs that something has suddenly started going on. Sometimes the cause of this stuff needs to be looked back over several day periods or longer.

eg i may of over done a little bit over a 2 week period but not noticed I'd over done and then suddenly I may get a sore throat at what first appears to have been triggered off by nothing at all. (its the very first indication I get at times when I need to rest more.. a sign of an impending crash if I didnt slow down). At something like this I know to adjust my baseline level of doing things back just a bit.

Its good that you are managing to the point of now not getting noticable PEM

 

[GlassCannonLife]

Did anyone from here trial this out?

@Chris did anyone ever end up doing a study on the LLLT?