Longevity
PGC-1α Twice
Discover how the PGC-1α gene controls your mitochondria and impacts both your health and performance—and which simple strategies can activate these cellular powerhouses.
Longevity
Discover how the PGC-1α gene controls your mitochondria and impacts both your health and performance—and which simple strategies can activate these cellular powerhouses.
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Normally, people don't need to know anything about genetics and cell biology. Consider the lion: it eats well and moves a lot. It doesn't need to read a biochemistry textbook to stay reasonably healthy throughout its life.
The Genetic Mismatch
For us humans, things have become a bit more complicated. Since humans settled down just a few thousand years ago, things have gotten out of hand. This intensified during the past century, when our eating and movement habits changed drastically once more.
Scientists call this a "mismatch" between our modern lifestyles and our genetic makeup, which is still relatively ancient. One result: diseases of civilization like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even depression.
Anyone wanting to become or stay healthy should follow the motto "Back to the Roots"—not by copying the past, but by emulating its principles.
PGC-1α – The Magical Mitochondrial Gene
There's a special gene that all living organisms, down to single-celled creatures, have in the same or similar form. It's called PGC-1α. And here's where we connect back to the opening thought of this article: as a layperson, you normally don't need to know anything—but PGC-1α is absolutely worth knowing!
PGC-1α is a protein that acts as a "cellular switch," primarily controlling the number and function of our mitochondria.
Our mitochondria—the "power plants of our cells"—don't just determine how much energy we have throughout the day or how easily we climb a mountain. They're essential for fat burning, protecting us from metabolic diseases, and are involved in countless health processes.
In short: if you want to be healthy and perform well, you need healthy mitochondria.
Making Health and Performance
Here's the catch: you generally don't get this for free. You have to put in some effort.
Overweight damages mitochondria. And people who avoid movement demonstrably have far fewer and less functional mitochondria—lazy people make their mitochondria lazy too. And if you don't supply your mitochondria with nutrients, you harm them like an aquarium owner who doesn't feed their fish.
We can give ourselves a little pat on the back here. Way back in 2014, we covered PGC-1α in detail in our "Handbook to Your Body" (it was an Amazon bestseller at the time)—long before it was even mentioned in the broader German-language scientific media. And in that very book, we stated:
Health and performance are often the same thing!
We justified this largely with this protein, with the fact that PGC-1α is the major intersection between health (e.g., freedom from diabetes) and performance (e.g., fatigue-resistant muscle).
Two New Studies on PGC-1α
This has been confirmed once again in two fascinating new studies.
In the European Journal of Applied Physiology, Chinese sports scientists discuss how combined training modes—endurance training plus strength training—activate different signaling pathways that lead to even better mitochondrial function than either sport alone (1).
That means if you run around the lake and then do squats, your mitochondria—and you—benefit doubly!
That PGC-1α is truly a magical protein is shown by another recently published study: people who inherited a particularly active PGC-1α gene variant lost more than twice as much weight over an eight-week endurance training program compared to the control group without the active gene variant (2).
Even if you can't count yourself among the genetically blessed—fortunately we only know this through genetic testing anyway—the results suggest it's very worthwhile to keep PGC-1α generally active all the time.
Two New Studies on PGC-1α
And that's where the circle closes:
The takeaway: Do it like the lion, and your mitochondria will thrive. You can also call it, quite modernly, the edubily program (est. 2014). :-)
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