For a child or a young adult, the question of havingenergy doesn't arise. As we get older, we quickly feel that we lack "vitality" or that we're "out of shape"!
There are times when you just don't have the energy you need to get around, to play sports, to cope with a busy professional life or even simple daily tasks.
For some people, this drop inenergy may be accompanied by a series of mild physiological disorders, whether conscious or unconscious. It's even more important to have energy during special periods such as growth, pregnancy, menopause or advancing age.
To function optimally, the cells themselves must be supplied withenergy. If this is the case, they in turn provide us with all the energy we need to take on everything and live a fulfilling life. Cellular energy levels should therefore be a priority for everyone.
At the heart of the cell is an organelle called the mitochondrion. More or less numerous depending on the type of cell, these veritable cellular "power plants" are responsible for the production, storage and distribution ofenergy. This organelle is essential for metabolism. Mitochondria are more numerous in muscle and heart cells, as they are constantly at work, but they are also present in liver cells to detoxify us, and in brain cells to memorize us, and so on.
Energy production requires a supply of oxygen through proper respiration. Our mitochondria constantly supply our bodies with energy from oxygen, in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) molecules. Unfortunately, the yields are imperfect: between 2% and 10% of this energy escapes in the form of free radicals! These hyper-reactive molecules are capable of destroying everything around them: membranes, proteins, vitamins, transporters, receptors and, above all, genes.
Use antioxidants to maintain vital energy
To maintain vital energy, it is essential to neutralize these free radicals with antioxidants to prevent damage. Over time, the increasing number of free radicals increasingly impairs mitochondrial function, producing less and less energy and more and more waste. The result is a vicious circle, which explains ageing and the loss of energy that goes with it!
Research shows that mitochondrial energy production declines from the age of 35.
Fatigue is one of the first signs of mitochondrial weakness. This fatigue usually has nothing to do with lack of sleep or lifestyle. This profound and often inexplicable fatigue can be observed at both physical and mental levels. This type of fatigue is characteristic of health problems such as fibromyalgia. We might even call it mitochondrial disease, since it is characterized mainly by muscular pain and extreme fatigue.
Oto Heinrich Warburg, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1931 (a pupil of Hans Adolf Krebs), hypothesized that the development of cancer could also be linked to dysfunctional mitochondria in cancer cells.
Taking certain drug treatments (notably statin-based cholesterol-lowering drugs) reduces the production of coenzyme Q10, one of the mitochondria's fuels. The decline in coenzyme Q10, which generally begins around the age of 50, is accentuated by 25% to 40% by these chemical treatments. Coenzyme Q10 is also a magnificent antioxidant which protects our cells against the destructive effects of free radicals. It is also the main antioxidant of cholesterol circulating in the blood.
To maintain your energy or if you are experiencing deep unexplained fatigue, consider boosting your coenzyme Q 10 reserves using products such asEnergyplex which contains not only CoQ 10, but also adenosine triphosphate (ATP), alpha-lipoic acid (which increases ATP synthesis), reduced glutathione (which protects mitochondria and the cell as a whole against stress oxidant, superoxide dismutase (SOD), another major mitochondrial antioxidant, acetyl-L-carnitine, an amino acid very useful for mitochondrial exchanges, and two vitamins B2 (riboflavin) and B3 (nicotinamide), enzymatic cofactors essential for the proper functioning of mitochondrial respiration.