Realfoodology - Live Longer: How Mitochondrial Function Reduces Signs of Aging | Timeline Longevity

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

278: Your mitochondria isn’t just the powerhouse of the cell - it’s the CEO holding the key to your longevity. Today I’m joined by dietitian nutritionist Jennifer Scheinman of Timeline Longevity to break down this exciting new area of health science - mitochondrial function and the powerful post-biotic urolithin A. If you’ve been hearing the buzz about mitochondrial health, Mitopure, or longevity therapies, this episode gives you the science and approach behind it all. → Timeline | Timeline is offering 20% off your order of Mitopure Go to https://timeline.com/REALFOODOLOGY Topics Discussed: → What is urolithin A?  → How does mitochondrial health impact aging? → Can post-biotics like urolithin A enhance the benefits of some foods? → How does urolithin A benefit the skin?  → What supplements can you take to benefit your mitochondria?  Sponsored By: → Timeline | Timeline is offering 20% off your order of Mitopure Go to https://timeline.com/REALFOODOLOGY Timestamps:  → 00:00 - Introduction  → 02:01 - Food First, Supplements Later  → 05:00 - Urolithin A Explained  → 10:00 - Mitochondrial Health + Function  → 20:19 - Perimenopause, Menopause + Fertility  → 22:55 - Studies & Research: Urolithin A  → 29:07 - Mitopure Results  → 32:14 - Aging, Immunity & Brain Health  → 38:18 - Impacts on Skin  → 42:21 - Mitophagy, Hormones & Plant-Based Diets   → 46:00 - Aging  → 49:26 - Mitopure Gummies, Gels & Powders  Check Out Timeline: → Instagram | Timeline Longevity → Instagram | Timeline Skincare  → Instagram | Jennifer Scheinman  Check Out Courtney:  →  LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE →  Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! →  @realfoodology →  www.realfoodology.com →  My Immune Supplement by 2x4 →  Air Dr Air Purifier →  AquaTru Water Filter →  EWG Tap Water Database Produced By: Drake Peterson

On today's episode of the Real Foodology podcast, it's not an in-your-face energy like coffee. It's, oh, gosh, like, I'm not crashing and burning at 3 o'clock anymore. Like, I tend to work out after work. So it's like, I do a full day of work. I go to the gym. I cook dinner. I, like, have time to spend with family and friends before I crash and burn. So it's just like a feeling like yourself again.

Welcome back to the Real Foodology podcast. We all know nutrition is the foundation of health. But what if aging better also comes down to how well our cells function? This week on the Real Foodology podcast, I sit down with Jennifer Scheinman, registered dietitian, and head of nutrition education at Timeline Nutrition. To dive into the science of mitochondrial health and the groundbreaking compound urolithin A. Jennifer explains how supporting your mitochondria, the true CEO of the cell, can boost energy, strength, and even skin health from the inside out.

From red light therapy to sleep to supplements like mitopure, this conversation unpacks how small cellular level changes can transform how we live and age. This was a fascinating episode. I'm getting more and more interested in mitochondrial health because I think that it is driving so much in our bodies, especially when we talk about longevity, muscle building, possibly fertility. We talk about all this in the episode. I think it's so fascinating. So I hope that you love this episode. If you could take a moment to rate and review it, a five-star review takes five seconds. It really does help the show. Seriously, people ask me all the time, how can I support you? How can I help you. Just give me a rating on either Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, leave a review. It really does

help the show a lot. And I just appreciate you so much. Thank you so much for the support. If you're loving this particular episode, if you want to tag me at Real Foodology on Instagram, I try my best to share all of them and see them. Thank you so much for your support. It really does mean a lot. And I hope you enjoy the episode. Thank you. Jennifer, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. Thank you for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here too. Yeah. So I was telling you this before we were recording. I am so excited about this compound that we're going to be talking about today. And it really takes a lot for me to get excited

about a supplement because I admittedly, I have supplement fatigue. I feel like every time we go on Instagram, there's a new thing that they're trying to sell us on, oh my God, you're really low in this or you absolutely have to have this to change your life, like X, Y, and Z. And I'm just, I'm admittedly exhausted by all of it and chasing all of this. But when I found add about urolithiname, I was so excited about this supplement. And like I said, it takes a lot for me to be excited about something because not only have I seen the difference in taking it in my own life, just seeing the science behind what it does and we're going to dive into all of that is really cool. Yeah. Well, I am the same way as a dietitian. I almost, gosh, it's

almost like 25 or 30 years that I've been a dietitian. Like my training and my belief is food first. But food can't always be everything. And people also have different goals where they might need some extra help or they're working through some different things. So, I mean, the word supplement is literally meant to supplement what you can't get in a diet. And I had the same reaction. I actually started my time with, we're going to talk a little bit about mitochondrial and you're a lot than A, but I actually started my time sort of doing some freelance work with timeline. And when I really dove into the science about it, I was like, this is very different than the way that any supplement company acts. Like the way their research is the quality of

the supplement. So I'm very careful. about what I take every day. It's very minimal, but this is one of them. And I really was so excited to learn more about it because I think there's so much potential here. That's so cool. And I love how aligned you and I both are about this, because same as you when I went through my schooling. I came to understand just how important it is to get our nutrients from our food because I always come back to this example of vitamin C. I find this so fascinating. There's conversation around the fact that, yes, we know that vitamin C is really good for your immune system and we know it does X, Y, and Z. But what about all of the other compounds that we maybe haven't found yet and studied yet

that works synergistically in that orange with the vitamin C that also have an effect? And I think that's such a cool concept. And it makes me realize, wow, we're probably missing out on so many other things when we're just chasing this one isolated compound that we think that we need versus having it in the whole real food form. Yeah, a thousand, a thousand percent. And I think your Lithuenae is like one of those things that it's when you just recognize how, integrated our bodies are with the food that we eat, you can't just like make a formula of this much protein, this much calories, this much vitamins and like have the perfect diet because there's so many things that we're still uncovering. And eurylithinae, I think, is something that

is sort of recently been hitting sort of the research universe. And there's so many other compounds, I bet that are like eurylithinae that haven't been even found yet. So yeah, So it's got to be food first, and then we can supplement in for some targeted things that we're trying to work on. Yeah, that's so cool. Okay, so let's talk about it. What is your allithin A and how does it support mitochondrial health? So we'll talk first about where it comes in nature. Because there's a little bit of a complicated story. It's not like vitamin C that's just available in food. And it's not as sort of like vitamin D. We make it from the sun. It's a little bit different. So we actually need a healthy gut microbiome to make your lithon A. It's what. it's called a postbiotic nutrient. So people I think are familiar with other postbiotic nutrients like short chain fatty acids are very important for gut health. And this is similar in that sense that when we eat certain types of food, our gut microbiome will convert the molecules

that we can't digest and absorb into urolithinae. So I like to say we give, we all know how important our gut microbiome is to our health. And it's like we give them room and board. They get to stay and reside inside our gut. They get to digest and metabolize things. We can't like fiber and in the case of eurylithinae polyphenols. And then they pay us back in these postbiotic nutrients. And that's an example of, I don't think we have any clue how many postbiotic nutrients are out there that are basically symbiotically in relationship with the bacteria that's in our gut and fueling us.

So that's really cool about urolithinae. Is it something that our gut makes for us? And specifically from these polyphenols that are found in foods like pomegranates, berries, and nuts. So foods that people really aren't eating a lot of on a regular basis. Okay. Amazing. Yeah. So it's found mostly, yeah, okay, in pomegranates. But I read something, and you can explain this further, that you may not necessarily be making the urolithinae when you're eating pomegranates. Is that because maybe you don't have the right microbiome setup in order to create it? Exactly. Okay. So it's not going to be directly in pomegranates. Those polyphenols

that are in pomegranates when we eat them, our gut should we have the right gut microbiome will make it for us. But no surprise right here in the U.S. Most of us are not walking around with healthy gut microbiomes. And even those of us who do everything we can, like I eat lots of fiber, I eat lots of probiotic foods. I was a C-section baby. I was breastfed. I mean, excuse me, bottle fed.

So my microbiome is just like never really, no matter what I do, right, it's just never going to be a perfect microbiome. So what we've done is there's actually been studies looking at populations. around the world, but one specific study that was published was looking at residents of Chicago, and we found that really only like 30 to 40 percent of the population even has that got microbiome to make it. So even if you're eating all the pomegranates of the world, if you don't have that bacteria to make that conversion to uralithinae, you're not going to get it. Wow, that's so interesting. So pomegranate makes me think of, I'm going to go off a little bit of a tangent here,

but bear with me. I know that pomegranate seeds and pomegranate juice, a lot of women are talking about it are really good for fertility. Like a lot of women I see that are on a fertility journey are really trying to up their pomegranate. I wonder if there's maybe a connection there with the uralithin A because I have a girlfriend. Now, this is, I want to be very clear for the podcast audiences, this is anecdotal, but I was told by someone at Timeline that they were going to look into this and maybe do studies about it. So I'm hoping that they maybe have started that or that they will. Antidotally, I have a friend who works with a lot of clients, and she said that she has had four or five different clients now that were struggling with their egg retrievals

because they wanted to freeze their eggs. She put all of them on timeline mitopure, and every single one of them double and triple their egg retrieval just from taking uralithin A. Now, I think just knowing the science behind how uralithin A supports mitochondrial function, that it would be a no-brainer to me that, oh, of course it would help more with your egg quality. Again, anecdotal, but it would be really cool to see the science behind that. Yeah. So, I mean, like our, our, ovaries and our eggs require so much energy from mitochondria and we'll talk a little bit about I was putting like the cart before the horse around how it can help when we don't talk yet about how it does help but because there's so much mitochondria in our eggs and actually in sperm for men

as well you're right it absolutely makes sense that having something that's going to make those energy producers those mitochondria healthier may have a benefit and there's a lot of really interesting preclinical data so there's one study in particular I think her name's Dr. Colleen Murphy she out of Princeton, and she is looking, again, in more animal models. So we don't have any human data yet, that it does seem to improve the quality of the eggs. So that is something that is definitely being researched. And just the whole link of mitochondrial health to fertility is there. So we don't know yet, but I love hearing that kind of feedback. Right? I thought that was so cool. That was one of the things that really sparked my interest initially about it. And then when I

started taking it, I was experiencing all the benefits that you guys talk about, you know, like the post-workout recovery, I wasn't really getting sore after doing really intense workouts, more strength in my workouts, and just more energy and vitality in general. It was really awesome. And I'm on my own personal fertility journey right now, so I was like, oh, I need to start taking this. So let's, okay, let's take a step back. So mitochondrial function is all the rage. Everybody's talking about it now.

But I don't think a lot of people fully really understand the scope and how important it is and what role mitochondria plays in our health and our ovaries, everything, our longevity. Can we talk about that? Yeah. So I don't know what your schooling was like in terms of your nutrition training, but when we learned about the mitochondria, it was like memorized the Krebs cycle and like glycolysis and just how, yeah, it's the powerhouse of the cell. That's like all we learned about.

That's all we learned, right? Yeah. But we didn't really learn that, A, they do so much more for ourselves than just energy. So while they are the powerhouse of the cell, and I do like that name because they're so powerhouse I think that's almost a little bit of misnomer because they do so many other things. Yeah, I feel like it undermines what they actually do. Yeah, yeah. One of my coworkers calls them like the CEO of your cell, which is so interesting to me.

And she is someone who's been researching mitochondria her entire career, because I think we think the nucleus is like the CEO. So that is really interesting to me. And also that, you know, anyone who took high school biology probably has this visual of that almost like cartoon cell and there's like one little mitochondria in there. and no our cells have a little thing around it like our cells have thousands of mitochondria depending on what cell types so like your heart or your muscle cells are going to literally have thousands of mitochondria because those are tissue types that require tons of energy brain as well and then varying so varying amounts per cell based on the activity level and these mitochondria actually like a little life cycle so they are fusing together and dividing apart and replicating

and they get worn out and they get recycled all to meet the energy demands of the cell, which is so cool. And so there's just so much more to them as these sort of like static little factories. And to your point, what I think is so interesting about them is that every cell in our body except our red blood cells is relying on energy from the mitochondria. And what research is established is that there is absolutely a link to longevity and health span here because it is one of the key drivers of aging, mitochondrial decline. So science has uncovered these 12.

They call them these biological hallmarks of aging. And those are basically processes that, biological processes, that there's things you could do like smoking, for example, and that's like putting the accelerator on the aging process. And then there's things that you could do fasting, exercise, that slow down these biological processes. So mitochondrial decline is one of those key hallmarks. And considering that the mitochondria help with cell code,

communication. They help with cell, you know, program cell death. They do so many things. They help, you know, with like damaged mitochondria can contribute to inflammation. So there's so much that's happening on the mitochondria. So that's why it's important for your brain health. It's important for your ovaries. It's important for your skin. It's important for your muscles. Like, it's important for all of your cells. Do you think that we will ever get to a point where we maybe realize that aging is not necessarily inevitable? It's mitochondrial. I think it's maybe. I think that a lot of these cellular biomarkers, or sorry, hallmarks, like, they sort of work together.

Like, everything in your cell, in your whole body, right? It's a symphony. So I get nervous when someone's like, oh, we're just going to pinpoint it to mitochondrial health. I think it's like, how does the mitochondrial play with epigenetic changes? How does it play with nutrient signaling? They all start to talk together. But I do think that we are not only recognizing the critical importance, of mitochondrial health, but we're also coming up with lots of different things and interventions

that can help target mitochondrial health, and that might have a downstream effect on some of these other hallmarks of aging as well. That would be so wild. What if in like 30 years we realize, oh my God, we don't have to age rapidly like this. We actually just need to protect our mitochondria. Well, and I think... And it just would be crazy, sorry. Yeah, no, but I think that's where we're going is to a much more sort of personalized approach to medicine, where we can pinpoint some of these things. I mean, think about where I say mitochondrial health is the new gut health in the sense then, like, just like you said, everybody's talking about the mitochondria these days. You know, 10, 15 years ago, the science around gut health was there, right?

Like, we knew what leaky gut was. We knew what the microbiome was, but forward-thinking doctors and, you know, nutritionists and people were starting to talk about it, but it was a little bit like woo sill. And now everybody knows gut microbiome to take care of your health. And now I think we're sort of there with the mitochondria is that the science is so there and it's starting to get out into mainstream conversations. And so, yeah, I mean, I do think that in the next five years, 10 years, we're going to have more interventions, you know, targeted interventions to do different things for the mitochondria. So it's exciting to see where we're going.

It's so exciting. It's so cool. And I love that this has become more of the forefront of the conversation. You mentioned a couple kind of obvious things, but what are some things that people might be doing that are damaging their mitochondria that they are not aware of? Well, let's start with the basics, which people probably are aware of. I mean, just the same things that are not good for your health are not good for your mitochondria. So if we do think of them in their basic of just an energy factory, right, like giving them poor quality materials to work with, right? Like a poor diet that's high in, you know, high in like sugars and unrefined carbs.

That's not going to be great for them. Missing key nutrients, that's not going to be great for them, not having an anti-inflammatory diet because they're very sensitive to inflammation. But I think also skewing the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio and having way more omega-6s than omega-3s. Exactly. Sorry, interrupt you. Yeah, no, but exactly. So it's just sort of, yeah, poor diet in general is going to be not great for your mitochondria. And then, of course, there's things like environmental toxins that is everything from just, you know, smoke and pollution. So they're very, they're very sensitive.

Not exercising. Exercise is great for your mitochondria. So it's sort of just very similar to just what's not particularly good for your health in is not going to be particularly good for your mitochondria. Yeah. What are some things that people can do to improve their longevity and their mitochondrial health? Again, diet and exercise. Like, those are always sleep.

Like, they're always going to be the foundation of whatever you are trying to accomplish, right? Like, we cannot escape a good diet. We cannot escape having exercise as part of our daily routine and sleep, circadian rhythm, all of that are going to be critically important. But then there are things that you can do to sort of up-level, just like in other other areas of your health. So of course, doing things, you know, there's some interesting research on things like red light that can be potentially helpful for your mitochondria.

There's some interesting research around things like cold plunge, that could be and even sauna, some of these other types of modalities. And then, of course, certain dietary supplements, fasting, I should actually throw that in there is actually going to be great for your mitochondria as well. And I think it depends, like what, again, what your individual goals are and what fits right into your, you know, lifestyle, right? Some people, fasting is just not a great strategy for them. Some people, you know, don't exercise, although they should, right?

Like, I think it's sort of kind of finding what fits into your lifestyle that really can be that, like, next level of mitochondrial care. Yeah, the red light thing I find really interesting. I've been getting more and more into red light therapy is the more I'm starting to see the effects in my own help, but also just seeing all the research coming out. is it true and safe to say that red light is like a battery charger for your mitochondria? Is that kind of how you would explain it or how would you explain it? Yeah.

So to be honest, I am not entirely sure the mechanism action of how it works on the mitochondria. So I do think that there is some like similar to kind of what you're saying. So there's like recharge just really helping with the mitochondria to renew. But I know just that there seems to be some research that's showing it is beneficial. But that specific mechanism is actually I'm not entirely sure. Yeah. Is there a world in which if someone has been living a pretty damaging lifestyle, let's say they're not exercising, they're eating fast food,

they're damaging their mitochondria in so many different ways, maybe they're smoking. Is there some sort of rejuvenation that can happen if you turn your life and your health around? Or is it kind of, how do I wear this? Can you rejuvenate and renew your mitochondria? Or is it kind of like once you've killed those off, you can't really do anything about it? No. So they're rejuvenating all the time anyways, in the back.

So anything with your health, like it is never too late. Like you have never done too much damage, right? You can turn your diet around, your exercise around, your mitochondrial health around. Like that's what's so beautiful about the human body is like it's constantly wants to be in a state of good health. So we're sort of programmed to shift into a, you know, and whether you are 30 or 50 or 70, it's not too late. You can do something. So the mitochondria just constantly in the background are going through this recycling process where, so I let's just think again about the mitochondria and that simple factory of energy, right? So to get energy at the end of that factory, you start with raw materials. That's the food that we eat and the air that you breathe. And I like to picture this sort of like complex assembly line with different workers and different ingredients get added on. And those are like your micronutrients and just some of the other things that you eat. And then at the end comes ATP energy.

But just like any factory, right? Like, no matter how great the quality of your raw materials, know how to great the workers are, it's going to wear down with time, right? And then when you add in poor diet, you know, environmental toxins, all these things, it might break down faster, right? But it's still going to break down. And our bodies, because they're so resilient, have this innate ability to break those, take those damage mitochondria, those broken down factories, basically, demolish them,

use what's still usable and rebuild new, better functioning mitochondria. So that process is a big world called mitophagy. mitochondria, kind of basically just this recycling of mitochondria. People who are very familiar with the fasting world are familiar with autophagy. So that's just a larger sort of more cellular process, whereas this is very targeted on the mitochondria. That is so cool. I never thought about that. I know about autophagy, like you said from fasting and other various modalities, but I never thought about the mitochondria sloughing off old dead mitochondria and then creating new ones. Okay, that's really cool. That makes me feel really hopeful in the sense of, you

Yeah, just people turning their lives around. I also think about, too, I mean, I just feel like every woman I know is on some sort of journey and struggle with fertility. And maybe there's a world in which we can renew the mitochondria in the ovaries and help in that aspect. Again, you know, just me thinking out loud here. No, I'm with you. I'm maybe a decade or two ahead where all of my friends are going through perimenopause. And, I mean, our ovaries are the fastest aging organ in a woman's body partly mitochondrial decline. And so I think that there, while there is not yet research in fertility or specifically

in menopause, and we'll talk a little bit about the research that is out there, because of the link to mitochondrial health, I think that this is a really exciting field to continue to study. Wow. So do you think this will help more with women in perimenopause and also maybe transitioning over into menopause too? I personally think like this is something that women in perimenopause should be really considering. Because when we think about that. what starts declining as we start to lose our estrogen, right? Muscle is the very popular story that's out there right now. So muscle, and we have some really great research on muscle health,

which happens to be in middle-aged women. So while I can't really say like it's going to help with menopause, I do know that at least in this age group, there seems to be some benefit. But we're starting to look at benefits in brain. We know that brain health starts to decline as we start to go through menopause. You can apply your allithinatopically, right? you go through menopause. I feel like I literally woke up one day and was like what happened to my face. And so now topically you can use your allithinae. So I think like it is really the nutrient for

menopausal woman. I say that just being one myself and just how it's changed my life and some of my friends that I have using it as well. I was going to say your skin looks amazing. Are you using the timeline products? I use the timeline products. Yeah. I need to get back on those. Oh yeah. You do. Wow. No, I mean, the whole time I'm sitting here going, wow, you're glowing. your skin looks amazing. Yeah, I swear by all of our products, but specifically our, I know we just are shifting from nutrition to skin, but I love it. It's so fun. We all have different favorites at the company, so I think the serum tends to be like everyone's favorite, but for me, the dewy moisturizing, like day cream is, it just makes my skin absolutely glow. I mean, you, okay, I need to

I need to get some more of that. Wow. No, I was just thinking this whole time. So it's funny, like, oh, my skin. I'm like, what? It looks amazing. Yeah, it looks really good. So, okay, well, so let's talk more about your allithinae specifically and what you guys are seeing, because what I really love about timeline is they have all the studies to back it up and they've been doing studies for, correct me if I'm wrong here, over, is it 14 years now? Over 15 years now. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so what is the science telling us that your allithina A is doing in the body? So the research really started. So I think one of the things that I love about the research team at Timeline is that they started their studies, like, think of it almost the way

that like a pharmaceutical is developed, where it starts in animals and is proven safe and efficacious and then goes to humans. And then those studies are published in top tier high impact medical journals. So things like JAMA network and cell and just really well-respected journals. And you don't see that very often for supplements. So the original research really was our CEO and our founders are all, like, doctors and scientists, and they were really trying to use this food as medicine kind of approach and to identify these powerful, kind of back to what we were talking about the beginning, right? Like, what else is in an orange besides vitamin C? So, like, what else is in a pomegranate besides some of these polyphenols? And they identified

this postbiotic molecule, this urolithine. And the way I understand it was they were working with the EPFL is kind of like almost like the MIT in Switzerland. It's just a very well-respected research institution. And they were working with one of these top professors, Professor Alvrex, who he's part of like the Resveratrol, and I think he even does some like NAD work. He's just a very well-known mitochondrial researcher. And so they gave him a bunch of different molecules from the pomegranate,

one of them being urolithin A. And he fed them to his worms, and he came back. And he was like, what is this you gave us? Because basically, like, the gold standard in terms of lifespan extension in a worm is like 47%. And you see that with like caloric restriction. And this was about like 45% lifespan extension in a worm, which is more than like some of these other things that they're studying again, like resveratrol, like NAD, even things like rapamycin. Like they're not seeing in worms the same lifespan extension.

So this got them really excited to bring it into mice and then obviously into humans. So it's gone sort of through many different animal models, which is really exciting. And the key that they found is that it triggers what we're talking about before, that recycling process of the mitochondria, so that mitophagy. And I think it's important for your listeners to understand because there is a lot of talk around mitochondrial health and different supplements that you can take. And they work sort of differently, right? Like you can build new energy factories.

They call that biogenesis. That's the creation of new mitochondria. you can make the mitochondria more efficient or protect it, right? So things like antioxidants or B vitamins that's going to help with your energy metabolism. But at the end of the day, when that factory gets demolished, or sorry, when that factory gets damaged, you do want to kind of take it out and get rid of it out of the cell. You don't want it lingering around so you can have more real estate to create those new mitochondria. That's very unique to your alliphon A.

So people are getting very excited about things like NAD or the NAD precursors and Kocutan and methylene blue, all these other things, which are all great for the mitochondria, but I like to think of the foundational piece as that mitophagy piece. You've got to clean out the old mitochondria, which urolithinae does, and it also helps build the new ones. And then when we talk about all the outcomes that happen, that's really where it's stemming from, that mitochondrial dysfunction or the improvement, I should say, in the mitochondrial dysfunction.

That's so cool. This is so fascinating. So on a tangible level for people to really understand, And what are people seeing as results from taking your lithon A? Yeah, well, let's start first with the clinical studies. And then I'm happy to share both my own experience and then just what a lot of our customers say. So the studies that we looked at first were really in the muscle space because we know, I mean, it's everywhere in social media, right? Mycel is so important to how well we age. And also the muscle because they're so energy demanding, like they rely on the health of the mitochondria.

So our first clinical study in muscle space, what we looked at. that was older adults and we had them on your lithone, either 500 or 1,000 milligrams for a month. And at the end of that study, we did a muscle biopsy. So we took a little piece of their muscle tissue and we analyzed it. And what we saw were these significant improvements in cellular energy in that mitophagy that was happening. And that's how we know it works. Because we get a lot of questions like, how do I know it works? How can I test for mitochondrial function? And we can dive into that, but there's not a great way just for, like, a consumer or a patient to test mitochondrial function, but this is how we know in a lab setting that it is, in fact, inducing mitapagy.

Cool. So the next question really is, like, well, so what, right? Like, what does that mean in terms of how am I going to feel? How, what is this going to do to me? And so the next study that we looked at was middle-aged adults, and they were also randomized to a placebo or 500 or 1,000 milligrams of ulythin-A. It was a four-month trial. and at the end of the trial, we saw significant improvements in muscle strength without changing

their diet or without changing their exercise. And these were sort of, I think it was like an average BMI of like 29. So sort of like your typical American, I think they had like, you know, suboptimal probably like blood pressure. We didn't like exclude people who didn't have like sort of some of the common things that you'll see in like a middle aged American adult. And so I think that's also something that's really powerful is that while again, nothing's going to replace diet, it, that there is help are things that you can do. And so I think that's where it's also getting a lot of excitement in, like, the menopause space in older adults because these are people who are starting to realize that muscle

decline is happening and want to do all the things that they can. And interestingly, in that study about, so I think of the average age was something like 45 to 60. And I want to say, like 60 or 70 percent of those people were women. So we know that it does also work for women in that age. group regardless of whether you're in menopause or perimenopause like if you're in that age group it seems like there seems to be a benefit for your muscles there so that's really exciting awesome yeah and what have you seen in your own personal experience so the first thing i noticed

was i don't get sore at the gym anymore that's me yeah it's mind-blowing it's really crazy and i so in the past i've been on it now probably like three or four years um and i work out with a personal trainer twice a week and only recently have i like been really caring about like what I lift at the gym, like, I guess because everyone's talking about on social media. And I'm like, what's wrong in mind? But like, when I first started, I was like, he just like hands me the weights. I don't really pay attention. Like, and I was like, Sal, am I, like, what are we doing?

Like, I'm not sore anymore. Like, what are you like giving me heavier weights? Are you like, is this like, it just didn't feel as hard. And I just wasn't sore. And he's like, oh, no, no. In fact, like, you're improving really well. So that was incredible. Wow.

And then the next thing I had had probably like in my early 14. I had chronic Lyme and I was really struggling with getting a lot of my like just energy back. I was sort of done with my treatment and like just sort of thought like, oh, I'm just tired. That's just like life. And I saw a friend I hadn't seen in like maybe six months and she's like, oh, how are you feeling? Like what's going on with Lyme? And I was like, you know, now that you say it, I feel amazing. Like it's not an in your face energy like coffee.

It's, oh gosh, like I'm not crashing and burning at three o'clock anymore. like I tend to work out after work. So it's like I do a full day of work. I go to the gym. I cook dinner. I like have time to spend with family and friends before I crash and burn. So it's just like a feeling like yourself again. Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. That was a very similar experience that I had when I started taking it. And as same as you initially, I didn't even make the connection until I started reading about some of the side effects that urolithine has on people. And I started to make that connection because same as you. I started getting really into lifting in the last couple of years because I'm getting more concerned as I'm aging and, you know, just not wanting to

deal with circropenia when I'm older and just seeing how important muscle building is. And so I got a trainer, same as you. I mean, we're doing like hefty, like she has me doing like barbell, like lifting and squatting and all this stuff. And every time I'd go in like two days later, she'd be like, oh man, like how are you doing? Are you really sore? I'm like, no, I don't. And, and, and, and, And I kept asking her, I was like, are we, like, not doing it? Like, I feel like I'm burning myself out in the gym. Like, I can't lift any heavier. And she was like, no, you're making great improvements.

And then I started realizing, oh, it's because I've been taking this here a lift in A, I think. Yeah. We hear that so often. And energy, I hear across the line. Like some people, it's like me where it feels a little more subtle. And some people are like, oh, my God, this is like life changing. So, you know, I think it depends. A, I think how in tune you are.

Like, some people aren't quite as in tune. with their body as others and some just maybe need it more than others. I don't know why some people just notice these like incredible improvements. But like every day, I mean, we get these reviews from people who have been on it. And it's just, I mean, there's like times I'm almost in tears because it's just so life-changing for some people. It's really, really nice. That's so cool. Yeah. What are some things that could potentially, that Euralithanae could potentially help with knowing what we know about how it helps with mitochondria that maybe we haven't studied yet that we we should look into. So there's one study that actually just came out literally last week,

which I think is really, really life-changing. So immune aging. All right. So there's so much in the longevity space where everybody is talking about brain health and muscle health and hormone optimization. But immune aging, like if you think about the sort of three key pillars of aging that we probably should be focusing on, it's muscle, its brain, and it's probably immune is going to be the third. And I, and part of that is not just, you know, because I think when people think about the immune system, it's like, oh, we're getting into winter, seasonal cold and flu, right? But it's I think cancer, I think other things where your immune system needs to be on. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Plus just inflammation, inflamaging. I mean, that is driven by your immune system, right?

So there's a lot to unpack there. And as you get older, right, like you hear about people who maybe aren't, if people do take vaccines, right, like they're not as responsive to the vaccines or, you know, just you get sick so much easier. So we just published a study and our chief medical officer happens to be an immunologist. So he's like particularly excited about this. But what we found was with a thousand milligrams of urolithinae and healthy middle aged adults just after one month. Like almost every marker of immune health that the study looked at seemed to be improved. So it seems to just improve immune fitness. It seems to help rebalance some of the immune cells in a more positive way. It helps to reduce some inflammatory markers of aging.

So the fact that that happened in just one month is pretty mind-blowing. So I think then the next question is like we don't know, but like will it help people prevent cold and flu? I think that's a great thing to study. I know there is some cancer research that's happening right now based on this study. There's some really interesting pre-clinical data in that. So that's one area that I think is pretty exciting. Another area we're going into is brain because as I mentioned before, their brain are so dense with mitochondria. Obviously, like we're thinking, we're doing things 24 hours a day, even when we're sleeping, things are happening. So our brain needs constant supply of energy. And the evidence is pretty clear that mitochondrial dysfunction is a key pathway to

neurodegenerative disease. So things like dementia, things like Alzheimer's. And in fact, that's being studied out of the Buck Institute of Aging in California. So I think that's a really promising new frontier. I ask our researchers this all the time. I think they're also interested in gut health, in heart health. There's just a lot we don't know. Reproductive health, both for men and women. So I think there's, given the widespread necessity of our mitochondria, I think there's really a lot to learn and unpack and see, you know, can it help, how long, what's the dose to make it happen? There's just a lot to uncover. That is so cool. I'm particularly excited about the areas of cancer, the neurodegenerative diseases,

and the fertility aspects of it. And in my mind, I mean, I just, I always love to bring common sense into this because I feel like with science, we forget about the notion of common sense. Obviously, we need the studies to back it up and we want to do that. But, you know, I just think about common sense, we know the mitochondria's effect on fertility, we know the mitochondria's effect on the immune system, like we know these things already. How could this not improve those areas, right? So it'll be cool to see the studies to back it up. You know, and when people ask me, like, you know, not just even for like urolithinae, right, but like creatine, like these things that are that are like people are using pretty widespread, like the things that I want to know is

even if we don't have the studies for that, like let's just make sure this is safe, right? I think people are taking things that are not safe. And I think that's another really important thing to know about mitopureururitone is that it's a very safe supplement, something that your body should be producing on its own. So there is no really like higher level of like toxicity that we found. What we found is the best way to dose it is either 500 or 1,000 milligrams to really get that optimal dose. Once you go over 1,000, it seems to plateau at the benefits. But I think that's a really important thing, right? If you're thinking like, do I want to use this for brain health, even though there's no research, well, let's make sure it's safe, right?

Yes. Right? And so I think that's, you know, for anyone who's listening, again, regardless of what supplement they might be thinking if they're trying to put one in one together and see what you get, just making sure that it's a safe thing to do, too. Speaking of that, do we know if pregnant women can take it or the effect on pregnancy? We haven't studied it in pregnancy. I know.

We haven't studied it in pregnancy. We haven't studied it in children. So I can't say, but other than that, I know that it's something that, again, should be in your body. But, you know, that would be something you would have to talk to your own OBGYN and, you know. Yeah, and figure it out from there. That's what I figured. So are there other compounds that you've found that people could consume with your allithinae that would maximize the benefits of it? So it's something that we're looking into. We don't have any studies yet that show specifically, like, taking it with this maximizes the benefit.

But I think that it will maximize the benefit of almost anything that you're taking if you have a healthier mitochondria. So I, you know, I think when we think about several different things that we take for cellular health, like we talked about omega-3s, right? I think all of these things can work really nicely and synergistically together. But that is something that we're actively looking at what is great pairing, what might make something work better or make the urolithinae work better. So lots to learn. Research unfortunately takes a long time. I know I get these great questions all the time.

And I'm like, we are working on it. It just takes a little time. Yeah. We're working on it. Yeah. We do know, I was going to say, to jump back to skin, actually, that we do know when you pair it with other actives, that you get a great benefit.

So all of our skin products have urolithinae as the key hallmark ingredient. That's what's, same thing inside your body when you apply it topically. it is inducing mitapagy in your skin cells, making them theoretically act in a more energetic young way. But when we pair it specifically, treehalose and niacinamide, which are just beautifully well-studied, very clinically powerful, other active ingredients, you do get this really nice, luxurious. We call it our like mitobiotic technology that helps to support the skin of the help of the skin. Okay, that's awesome. Everybody needs to go get these timeline-based products. I mean, I love them. they feel very luxurious. I just, I don't think I've used them long term enough to know and see the

effects. I'm very specific about my skincare and I've, I've used the same ones for like 10 years. So I've used that. I just wasn't sure. I needed to know the science behind it to motivate me to use it more. I mean, people are very, you know, skin care is very personal, right? Like it's, it's a lot. It's texture. It's like, you know, the science. It's the cost. There's a lot of things. And are you actually seeing effects yourself? Yeah. And we have, exactly. Because just what the science says. I mean, and that's the same thing for nutrition. too, right? Like, I just sat here and told you how great I feel like on timeline somebody might not. I still think it means it's working, by the way, just because you don't feel

it based on our muscle biopsy data. Something is happening underneath the surface. But, you know, skin's the same thing. Like, I, like, I love skin care. And so when I joined the company, I was like, I don't care what the science says about, like, mitopure as a supplement. Like, I believe it. I'm going to take it, even if I don't feel a benefit. But skin, I'm like, I'm not going to use a skin product that doesn't benefit. my skin. Exactly. I've been on it since we launched. I've been using the entire line. I think we launched like two years ago maybe. And I think my skin just continues to kind of get better as I use it. I really, really like it. I love the feel of them. I, you know, I just think they're really

well thought out, you know, ingredients backed by science. They've been clinically tested. Same level of research we do on our skin care as we do on the diet and same sort of cleanliness. I think that's a lot of, you know, people, there's so much perfumes and dyes and other junk that's in skin care products. And so these are very clean. We use a, I don't know if you're familiar with Yucca. It's kind of like, I call it the like environmental working group of like Europe. It's not as popular here, but it scores skincare products on their cleanliness. And I think we have like a 90 or 91 out of 100. So really clean. There's no dyes, no fragrances, no pair, but none of the yuck, just all the good stuff.

So fun. Do you know, I just ask this because I have a large audience that are moms or like wanting to be pregnant. Do you know if you can use them while pregnant? Again, we haven't. Sorry to put you on the spot again. Yeah, we haven't tested them. I don't think there's a risk like there is with like a retinol, right? Like that, obviously you can't use. I have not heard anything like that.

But I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I mean, this kind of stuff is so. because nobody wants to test on pregnant woman. Right, because God forbid something happened. Exactly.

So I get it. So it's tough. I always feel bad because I have so many women messaging me all the time. Oh, is this pregnancy safe? Is this pregnancy safe? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if anybody's doing these studies. That's what's tough about it.

Yeah. I mean, I know that I don't believe that when you apply, because I get this question a lot, right? Like, can I take the supplement and get skin benefits? Or can I use the topical and get to, benefit somewhere else. So I do hear often people say when they take the supplement that they notice their skin. We don't have any research. We just haven't looked at that. So I can't say that taking it is going to go all the way to all the layers of the skin and make your skin healthier. And sort of

vice versa, putting it on topically is not going to really give you a big systemic benefit. Does that mean it's safe for pregnant women? I don't know. So for this compound urolithin A, I've always called it food for the mitochondria. Is that the right way to put it? I don't think there's a right or wrong. So I guess I think of food for the mitochondria maybe more is like some of your micronutrients that help, you know, move the energy metabolism along. I think of it as more like the cleanup crew for your mitochondria. So when your mitochondria become damaged, they basically send up a little signal like we call it the eat me signal, which says basically like time for me to retire. and that's when mitophagy starts to happen.

That's when mitochondrial will go in there and kind of help that recycling process. So, yeah, I think of it more as like the janitor slash or just, you know, someone who's flipping a home, right? Taking something that's less than stellar and turning it into something that's new and efficient. I just got a vision in my head of Pac-Man eating all the little guys.

So I'm like, oh, it's like a Pac-Man, just eating all of the dead mitochondria that your body no longer needs. I've heard that several times. Oh, really? Yeah, perfect, perfect, perfect, yes. Wow, I thought I came up with that. That's funny.

I don't know why that. We'll let you put it. You did it. You did. Well, I've never heard it before in my defense, so it just was what I thought of. Perfect, perfect analogy. So do you think that urolithinae has any sort of effect on the hormones? Have we studied it all if the mitochondria affects the hormones at all?

So there is definitely hormone and mitochondrial connection. Now, whether there's mitopure connection, We don't know that yet. But, I mean, again, as I've been going through perimenopause and really trying to research and understand what's happening and where all the, like, vast areas that estrogen impacts. I mean, there's estrogen receptors on our mitochondria. In fact, the first step of steroid hormone production,

where you're taking cholesterol and you're turning it into pregnant alone, that actually happens inside the mitochondria. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. So, yes, I would imagine that there is a link now does mitopure help. I couldn't even like... Yeah, we don't know. Yeah.

That'd be interesting to study that too. Something I'm really passionate about is talking about plant-based diets versus animal-based diets. Because I actually, I was vegetarian for almost six years. And it's funny now because knowing what I know now about my MTHFR, my specific variation of 677T, and some other genetic snips I have,

I had a doctor sit me down a couple years ago looking at my genetic test, and she goes, ooh, do not ever go vegetarian. And I said, oh, I learned that the hard way. I did that and I got very sick. And again, this is all bio-individual. Somebody may thrive on it and other people may not. Although I have seen videos of midwives talking about what the placenta looks like for someone who's plant-based versus animal-based. So it makes me wonder, is there something going on with her mitochondria maybe that would be different in plant-based versus animal? Do you know anything about how those different diets would

affect mitochondrial health? So I don't really. I mean, I think. I think that the mitochondria do love antioxidants because it helps to protect them. So one of, unfortunately, one of like the side effects of being a mitochondria is that you were exposed to a lot of free radical damage. That's part of what just causes the damage of the mitochondria. So a healthy vegetarian diet tends to have a great amount of those polyphenols. But I think the way that I understand how nutrition impacts mitochondrial health, it's really more about the balance of fats and proteins. proteins and carbs, then really whether you're getting that from plants or meat exclusively. Do you think mitochondrial health is the root of aging? I think it's one of them.

For sure. What else do you think it is? Well, as I kind of mentioned before, there's sort of like 12 hallmarks of aging that biology is really deeply studying. We know chronic inflammation is one of them. We know that gut dysbiosis, our gut changes as we age. So, you know, our body just becomes less resilient to things. But I think what I've seen and have heard some people who are much smarter than I and who really study mitochondria all the time is that they feel that the mitochondria are sort of one of these central hallmarks where they're contributing and touching how some of these other all marks behave. I always like talking about that. I think it's really fascinating because we've always been told by the medical system like, oh, this is just what

happens with old age. This is just what happens. And I've always felt like, no, I'm not going to claim that for myself. And now, obviously, I'm not saying we don't live forever. Of course we don't. That's not what I'm saying. But I don't think that we just have to go through life going up. I hit my 50s. Now I just have to suffer through these things. I think there's a lot of things that we can do, like supporting our mitochondrial health, making sure that we have good muscle mass, making sure that we're getting a nutrient-dense diet so we're not dealing with all these nutrient deficiencies. Then we go into osteoporosis. Like I think there's so many things that we can do, which I find really empowering and really exciting. And I don't just

take the doctors like, oh, you're just, this is what happens with old age. I'm like, no, that is not, I don't claim that for myself. No, I think the conversation is changing so much. I think people are like, they're looking at how their parents have aged and they want a different path. And so it doesn't mean that we're not aging. It's just, it's this concept of like health span and lifespan, right? Like, you know, I think there's some people out there who are really trying to push the limits on how long they age, right? Like either never die or like live into like 120, 130, 150, whatever it is. And then there's people who are like, if I live to 90 or 100, that's fine, but I don't want to start being like chronic disease and aches and pains when

I'm 60 and living those last like 20, 30 years just debilitated, right? That's, and that's me personally and I think one of the missions that we really stand by at timeline is just how do we improve the quality of your life in your later years, and that has to start earlier. Yes, exactly. I say this all the time. I don't want to suffer in my older age. And again, obviously, there's always going to be things that we can't control, but we're realizing there's so many things that we can control. I mean, I look at my parents. My parents have always taken really good care of their health. My mom cooks everything from scratch. They don't eat ultra-processed foods. They're just, they're really healthy. They exercise every day.

My parents are in their 70s, and they're still skiing, they're hiking. That's what I want. That's what I want for my life, where I'm still thriving and I can do the things that I love and be there for hopefully my grandkids, if they have them. It's like we want to take the most out of life while we're here and not be debilitated for the last 20 years of our lives. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's like, I love that that message is just really like becoming so loud right now, is that we can take a different path. And we have, A, we know, like, despite the fact that our environment and our food is not as good quality as probably our parents had, but we know how to make choices. And we now have new tools, things like

mitopure, we're just understanding, you know, we're learning so much more about how we can age differently. Yes, exactly. Is there anything else that we didn't cover about timeline, your lithon A, mitochondrure, anything that you feel like is really important? I think we've got all of it. I think the one thing maybe just to quickly touch on for anyone who is interested in trying it, because I get this question all the time, is like, how do I take it? How much do I take it? Like, can I take it with other things? So it's sold in 500 milligram doses. We have three different ways to take it. It's really just about how someone prefers. Are you taking the soft gels or the gummies? I do the gummies. I love the gummies. They're so good. They're so good. And they're

sugar-free. They're natural dyes. Those were seriously like something like three years in the making to make something that tasted good, that was clean, that like without using any preservatives would like stay a beautiful color, like that was a really long time. So there's the gummies. There are the soft gels. And then there is a powder, a berry flavored powder that you could mix into like a smoothie. There's no sugar in that. So it's a little bit tart, but I think it's really delicious. So all three of those, there's 500 milligrams. You can go up to 1,000 milligrams if you want. No benefit really to going higher than that. And you really can take it any time of day. While our studies looked at taking it sort of first thing in the morning fasted, we've also tested,

it with. You can take it without food. So when I put my like dietitian clinician hat on, it's like when is the best time of day that you're going to remember to take it? That's the best time for you to take it. And then I think the other thing to just remember is it does take a little bit of time to start feeling the benefits. So it's not like caffeine where you know you're going to take it and immediately feel energized. And in today's I call like the Amazon prime world where everyone wants something tomorrow. You're not going to feel this tomorrow. You need to give it. I like to say up to four months to really give it a chance to go in, clean out those dysfunctional mitochondria, get new, better ones, and then start feeling those effects. And that's actually what

our clinical studies show as well as kind of four months is where we start to see some of those significant improvements. But plenty of people feel improvements sooner as well. So that's awesome. Yeah, I just will say about the gummies. That's good to know that I can take a thousand because those are the only gummies that I've ever had in like supplementation form that I'm so bummed that I can only have two of them a day. Yeah, they are very. I get that, I get that question a lot. Like, what happens I eat more than four?

What happens? You know, I'm like, well, more than four, it's just the most expensive candy you've ever eaten. Exactly. But I am the same way. Like, if I was to eat candy, like, gummy is probably the first thing I would go for. So they are just, like, I take two after lunch

and I take two after dinner. And I'm like, I love that. My little dessert. Yeah, I actually sent them a photo of them to a friend of mine who's, I want to, he's kind of like, he's kind of like, like a sugar candy codsore. And he's very interested in all the new like gummies and stuff that are coming out. And one of his biggest gripes is he's always like, oh, this one tastes bad, this one tastes bad. And I sent him those and I was like, you got to try these. You're going to love

them. It's actually a supplement gummy that tastes good. I need to get his feedback actually and see if he had him. But I was excited about that. I would love to hear that. I've actually had a customer tell me like we should go into the candy business next. No, seriously, though. Can you just make some just sugar-free gummies that I'll bring it back and see what we can do. Yeah, you guys killed it. And I will say to the powder. So before that, I've taken all iterations because when I first started taking timeline, I believe all you guys had was the powder. At the very launch, we only had the powder. But then I, when I started about three years ago, we did have the soft gels at that point. Okay. So then I, wow, so then I've been taking Euralithanae for a while because they initially had

the powder because I remember when they came out with the gels. And then I was taking the soft gels for a while because I kind of, I go through phases where I kind of get like fatigue from all the different powders and stuff. But I will say what I love about the powder is I was adding it to yogurt in the morning and then just adding some berries and like granola. And it's really good. That's literally in the summer. That's like my breakfast every day is like blackberries or blueberries or whatever I have because it doesn't have sugar. So it's like not adding any sweetness, but it just makes this really nice berry flavor. Yeah. It's really good. If you have it with like plain grape yogurt or whatever yogurt you like. But yeah, I agree. That's my favorite way to

take it to. Yeah, I'm a big fan. Please let everyone know where they can find you and also where they can find timeline. So you can find timeline at timeline.com. We have actually two social handles. One is timeline longevity for our supplements and then timelines, oh gosh, timeline skin care for our skin. Don't quote me on that. I'm going to get in trouble for not knowing that one. But we also have a timeline skin handle so you can get all the news around sort of what new products are coming and all the science. And then I'm personally at Jen Shimon Nutrition on Instagram or NextGen Health. Amazing. We will make sure in the show notes that it has the right Instagram on there. We'll look it up. Thank you so much. This was an awesome episode.

Thank you. I'm so glad. This is so fun. Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio, and if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not

your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. Are you ready to rock middle age? I'm Dr. Tina Moore, GenX, Truth. teller and holistic physician. On the Dr. Tina show, one of Apple podcast's top alternative health shows, I share what actually works for metabolic health, hormones, and strength, backed by decades of clinical results, not trends. From loving the gym and hitting your protein goals to peptides and microdosing GLP1s, it's all done the right way, not the hype way, because menopause doesn't have to suck if you're fit. New episodes every Thursday, produced by Drake Peterson and Wellness Loud.