Clare Richards

Producing energy generates waste. This is true in a car engine and it is true in a human body. Why is this important? In #MECFS #LongCovid one of the primary issues has to do with how our bodies produce ENERGY (ATP). For most healthy people the process goes something like "eat some food, get some sun, kick start the 'respiratory processing chain', generate some waste products, clean them up, and rinse and repeat". For post-viral syndromes and similar conditions EVERY part of this above process is broken or dysfunctional. *We eat food but cannot absorb the same nutrients as before. *We rarely get enough sunlight and even when we do we are missing many of the co-factors needed to harness it properly. *The respiratory processing chain is often broken and cells themselves become leaky, releasing mitochondria (not a good thing) *Even though way less energy is made a LOT more waste is generated. This waste is called 'reactive oxygen species (ROS)' or 'free radicals' and its what we talk about when we say "oxidative stress". To make things worse this waste is toxic and and turns back and damages mitochondria, cells, and DNA. *Cleaning up the waste is hard because we don't get enough ANTIOXIDANTS (molecules that help lower oxidative stress). We need MORE antioxidants than most people and also have a WAY harder time of getting them into our bodies through food or supplements. Why? leaky guts means less of the good stuff actually getting into cells properly. The end result is WAY more ROS (toxic waste) than our systems can handle. What happens when oxidative stress is high? Cellular damage, inflammation, DNA damage. I heard a line the other day that it is not the "military-industrial complex" its the "industrial-inflammation" complex. Systemic inflammation - which is caused partly by this issue with too much ROS and too little antioxidant is one of biggest issues we deal with in the modern industrial world - across all chronic illness as well as in aging. It makes sense to most people that energy producing machines create waste and to use them efficiently you need to maintain and clean them up. The same rules are at play in the human body. When young and healthy the whole process operates in the background without much of a problem but as you get older or have to manage chronic illness you actually need to help your system along. Without the foundational ROS toxin cleaners - the antioxidants - the damage and inflammation just builds up. @behlthi