Episode 204 | Nov 5, 2026

The Truth About Mitochondrial Health and Aging, With Siobhan Mitchell

Could the secret to healthy aging lie within the tiny structures that power our cells? This week on Health Coach Talk, Dr. Sandi welcomes Siobhan Mitchell, neuroscientist and Chief Scientific Officer of MitoQ, to explore the critical role mitochondria play in energy production, longevity, and chronic disease prevention. From oxidative stress to cellular function, their conversation reveals why protecting mitochondrial health may be an important factor in aging well.

“And what’s interesting about energy is that the more you create energy in the mitochondria, the more you’re also creating oxidative stress in the mitochondria.”

Siobhan Mitchell, PhD

With a PhD from SUNY Albany and postdoctoral research focused on brain aging at the University of Washington, Siobhan has spent decades investigating the relationship between nutrition, cognitive health, and aging. Her career includes leading clinical research at Unilever, Nestlé, and PepsiCo, as well as overseeing research into digital health interventions for chronic disease management at Noom. Today, she brings this extensive scientific background to her work at MitoQ, exploring how targeted antioxidants may support mitochondrial health. In her conversation with Dr. Sandi, Siobhan explains how mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to oxidative stress, why cellular energy production requires balance, and how nutrition, exercise, and emerging supplementation research may influence the aging process.

For health coaches, understanding mitochondrial health offers another perspective on the lifestyle factors that influence long-term wellness. Siobhan highlights the importance of key nutrients like omega-3s, potassium, and iron, while exploring how mitochondrial dysfunction may contribute to fatigue, inflammation, and age-related health challenges. She also emphasizes the value of health coaching in helping individuals understand the science behind their health and make meaningful, sustainable changes. By connecting cellular health to everyday lifestyle habits, coaches can empower clients to take a more proactive role in supporting their health as they age.

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Transcript

Dr. Sandi: We’ve probably all heard about mitochondria and how essential they are to good health, but what do they actually do? How can you assess the health of your mitochondria? What’s their role in aging and development of chronic disease? And most importantly, how can you best support your mitochondria? These are the topics that we talk about with my guest, Siobhan Mitchell. She is literally the expert. Let me tell you a little bit about her.

She is the chief scientific officer of MitoQ. She completed her PhD at SUNY Albany, and a postdoc fellowship on brain aging at the University of Washington. She’s held roles at the three largest food companies in the world, Unilever, Nestle, and PepsiCo. And she is leading trials in Europe, North America, and Asia, which investigated the effects of nutrition on cognitive decline, mood, and performance.

Additionally, she was the senior director at Noom, where she directed a team investigating chronic disease management, weight loss, and mental health digital programs using cognitive behavioral therapy. So, I know you are going to learn a lot from my interview with Siobhan.

Welcome, Siobhan.

Siobhan: Hi. I’m so excited to be here. And I was just telling you a few minutes ago that I think health coaching is the real secret to longevity. So, very excited to talk to you today about everything to do with healthy aging and how to keep your mitochondria healthier.

Dr. Sandi: That’s music to my ears. So, let’s start with the mitochondria. We hear so much about this, but many people really still don’t understand. And if, let’s say, you’re a coach wanting to explain it to people, how would you explain mitochondria and the critical role played in the aging process and the development of chronic diseases?

Siobhan: Yeah. And I know how everyone feels when mitochondria is mentioned because it just flashes everyone back to high school biology. There’s ATP, there’s lots of biochemical processes, and it seems terrible to try to figure it all out. But in the end, the way to think about mitochondria is they are providing almost all the energy that our cells use to do everything in our bodies. And what’s interesting about energy is that the more you create energy in the mitochondria, the more you’re also creating oxidative stress in the mitochondria.

And so, just to give you a little sense about how I got interested in the mitochondria, I had the high school biology, and I was like, “That’s confusing. I don’t want to deal with that.” But then when I was a post-doc, and I was working in a lab that was looking at the basic causes of aging — so, what is it that’s really making our cells change and really causing all our organs to fall apart — it was very clear from the research that was going on all around me that it was the way our body uses energy. And the way our body uses energy, like for instance, if you rev up too much energy and your body’s trying to make too much stuff, this will cause damage in the end because you’re actually introducing entropy.

Entropy is a kind of difficult term, but the idea of just that you are creating too much stuff in your body, and it’s overwhelming for your cells. And the way that you have to think about energy is you only want just the right amount. Too much energy is bad, but too little energy is also not good because then you can’t produce all the things you need to.

And so, the thing that I also want people to think about when they think about energy is that they’re going to feed their mitochondria with the right stuff to make energy. And I will talk a little bit about that, the kinds of nutrition that you need, the kinds of ways that you can help your mitochondria know if it’s stressed or not. And this is a whole other area of mitochondria research that’s really interesting.

But the other thing is that mitochondria are dictating to our cells everything that it’s going to do over the lifetime of the cell. So, in a way, the mitochondria is like the CEO of the cell. And that’s really important because if you think about it, the thing that controls all your energy production in the cell should be responsible for what gets made in the cell, how does the cell react to the environment, all the rest.

So, the final thing I’ll just say about this is that mitochondria are, of course, the powerhouse of our cell. That’s what everyone remembers. But they’re also telling our cells to do many other things. And if it gives the wrong signals to the cell, it can also cause more damage, more dysfunction to the cell.

And so, that’s the big secret that I think people have not talked about as much. And this is just a developing area of research of just how mitochondria are, for instance, dictating our immune system, how it’s dictating, as I said, all our stress responses.

So, this is where… When I talk about all these diseases, and I’ll talk about a few things that mitochondria seem to be the origin in terms of disease, you’ll see how the first sort of dysfunction in mitochondria can then mediate vascular dysfunction or mediate poor glucose control. So, all those things.

Dr. Sandi: I just find this fascinating, and it’s… We tend to think of needing more energy, so, powering up those batteries in the cell, the powerhouses. And you’re saying there’s a sweet spot. It’s like a Goldilocks, like that too little production, but it can also be in the opposite direction, and would that be maybe people who are over-exercising, ultra-marathon runners, they would become…they’re…it’s too much, or overstimulated with too much caffeine, or they’re too revved up, too much anxiety, too much cortisol. So, is that what you’re referring to, that we can overdo it?

Siobhan: Yeah. Actually, that is possible. You can definitely overdo it in terms of too much exercise and tearing up your muscles, and then making your cells not able to recover. But I was really thinking more about the fact that in especially our society these days, a lot of people are overweight. Having too much energy, having excess calories can actually cause a lot of stress to your mitochondria. And so, I’ll just give an example of how this can happen.

So, your mitochondria are, of course, taking all your fuel that you’re giving it — so, carbohydrates, fat, protein — and turning it into energy. And so, with something where you’ve got a lot of calories coming in, your mitochondria will try to take as many of those calories — the fat, the carbohydrates — and turn them into ATP.

As it’s turning ATP, it’s making ATP, it’s also causing this thing called oxidative stress. So, these free radicals that are formed from when oxygen is basically torn apart to make that ATP, and that oxygen can then go on to, yeah, be more reactive than it should be. And these free radicals from oxygen can damage your DNA, they can damage your proteins, they can basically cause aging.

And so, the more you are revving up that ATP production with the excess fuel, the more oxidative stress you are causing. And so, over time, this can basically cause the cell dysfunction. And it can lead to many of the things that we think about when we think about overweight and obesity causing other issues like diabetes, like cardiovascular disease, even things like cognitive decline. So, now, there’s a much more, I would say, acute understanding of being overweight or having diabetes can increase your risk of cognitive decline. And that’s, of course, very important to me because I’m a neuroscientist, and I feel like one place you want to protect all throughout your life is your brain. Your brain is yourself. So, keeping that intact and functioning as optimally as possible is one of the things that drew me into science in the first place.

Dr. Sandi: So, besides excess weight, calories, what else is going to impact the mitochondria? What about diet?

Siobhan: Yeah. So, this is very much, of course, a big topic these days. Everyone’s talking about ultra-processed food and how bad that can be. And for sure, it can also be bad for mitochondria. So, for instance, palmitic acid, which is something that’s found in a lot of ultra-processed food. So, it’s this fatty acid. It’s found in palm oil, for instance. This is something that has been shown to be very toxic to mitochondria because it causes a lot more of that oxidative stress.

And same thing with having that too much sugar and causing your…obviously, your mitochondria to make that ATP and then accelerate that oxidative stress can be damaging over time. And I’ll give you an example of an interesting study that really went into that area.

So, there was a study actually done with a molecule that my company makes, MitoQ, sold as a supplement, where they’re trying to see the origins of diabetes. So, how does diabetes start? How do we start having insulin resistance? And so, what they saw was when they were giving people, some subjects that are overweight, a large amount of fat to mimic a high-fat meal, they saw that the mitochondria after this high-fat kind of injection would cause a lot more oxidative stress than usual.

And as they cause that increased oxidative stress, the muscles of these subjects stopped getting glucose inside them. So, they didn’t have as much glucose absorption. And the reason why is that oxidative stress to the mitochondria basically caused these glucose transporters, these transporters that allow the glucose into the muscle cells to become stuck. So, they weren’t really responding the way they should.

And so, the result, of course, is now you have a lot more glucose circulating around in your blood, causing other kinds of damage. And this is just from one big kind of bolus of fat. So, kind of the origins of things like diabetes can be traced back to mitochondrial dysfunction and a loss of that efficacy of insulin. So, that’s what I thought was like a really interesting example of how your mitochondria are important for these very early signs.

And what was interesting was, in that same study, when they gave MitoQ at the same time as this bolus of fat, they saw that the protection that MitoQ could give to the mitochondria allowed the glucose transport to still occur as normal. So, I think that was a really good illustration of if you can protect your mitochondria, you can protect everything.

So, I think a little bit of like the extreme diet situation, but just to go back to good things you can do with your diet, there’s a lot of things that the mitochondria needs in terms of nutrition. So, the mitochondria are made up of these lipids, these phospholipids. So, encourage everyone to go out and get a lot of omega-3s, especially EPAs. And that’s a sort of anti-inflammatory omega-3 that is very important for the mitochondria. And then, of course, the mitochondria needs a lot of, I would say, minerals. So, things that people have heard about, like magnesium, and iron, and potassium to work well.

So, this is, I think, interesting these days where everyone’s focused on magnesium. Oh, magnesium, that’s a thing. I can use it to sleep. I can sleep. I just want to highlight that potassium is also something that people are usually not getting enough of. It’s a thing…or I don’t know if you’ve seen some of the data where the… It seems that our vegetables are having less and less potassium over time because of the way that we’re farming.

And so, it’s now even more important to gauge how much potassium you’re eating, and really try to get as much potassium as you can through whatever means you can. So, it could be supplements in the end, but obviously, looking for potassium-rich food.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. We don’t tend not to think much about potassium. Yeah. We are focused, you’re right, on magnesium because…

Siobhan: Yeah. And I get it because I feel like people get fed a lot of the same sort of stories from everyone, like their friends and all the rest. And it becomes a whole sensation. And I can talk about creatine as well as one of those things that I think everyone is talking about these days.

But it also means we shouldn’t neglect a lot of other things that, for instance, our mitochondria needs, but obviously, our whole body needs that maybe gets put down by the wayside. And iron is another one, I think, that…especially women these days, I think there’s…

Dr. Sandi: Oh, for sure.

Siobhan: …stories about iron. But if you really wanna make sure your mitochondria run efficiently, you need iron. Yeah.

Dr. Sandi: And thanks for those reminders. Potassium and iron tend to, yeah, be overlooked, especially women aren’t eating red meat anymore. And it tend…may possibly be low. So, would it be fair to assume then that your healthy aging and prevention of chronic disease really depends on the health of your mitochondria? I love what you said earlier, that they are the CEO. And we teach our health coaches to help people feel empowered to be the CEOs of their own health, starting with your mitochondria working for you.

Siobhan: Yeah. And what I think is great about health coaching is that it’s all about giving the understanding of the goal, and making the goal valuable and something that is achievable through the right kinds of, yeah, directives and nudging. And this is how I feel about mitochondria.

So, we don’t think about them that much. We’re just living our lives, and it’s hard to picture these little organelles in our body as something that we need to preserve. But I think, when you talk to a health coach or you talk to someone who’s understanding all the science, and you build that understanding, and you build the sort of value in what you’re doing, that is the real change.

And so, I think that’s what I get excited by, is just even talking to you and getting people excited by their mitochondria, thinking about them not just as that thing that they talked about in high school, but something that they can take control of and make a difference in terms of their aging. And it’s worth it to think about every day to make that difference in aging. So, yeah.

And just to give you another example. So, I obviously probably have imagined that many guests have talked about exercise on your podcast and how important it is. And I know it’s hard to do. I find it a struggle to do every day. And what I really actually appreciate about mitochondria is that the mitochondria, of course, the way that you can figure out if your exercise routine is doing good, doing well or not, just by the fact that, for instance, if you’re going up the stairs and you’re getting a little bit breathless, that’s a sign that your heart muscle is not able to deliver as much oxygen. You’re not able to pump as much blood into your body as you should. And so, that’s to do with your heart muscle, and it’s also to do with your vasculature.

And another study that was really illustrative of how important mitochondria are, looked at how your vasculature and your heart react to a very strenuous exercise. And what’s really clear is that mitochondria, as you age, are responsible for how well your blood vessels can dilate and let in blood to the places it needs to go during exercise. And mitochondria are actually the most dense in your heart muscle than anywhere else in your body because, of course, your heart needs to beat perfectly throughout your life, never stopping.

And so, clearly, what was now shown in a lot of research involving some of it with MitoQ, but just general basic research, is that your mitochondria are the key to keeping your heart and your blood vessels working the way they should so that you don’t feel like you can’t get up the stairs, you don’t feel like you can get your workout done. So, it’s not always about muscles. And I know people get excited, like, that’s all I care about. I wanna see a big muscles. I think that’s what this whole creatine phase is right now of just, like, I wanna see that huge muscle, I know it’s working. But I also want people to think about how is their heart responding, how is their vasculature responding?

And so, these signs of even just when you’re going up the stairs, are you feeling tired in your legs, or is it really like you’re getting breathless? If you’re getting breathless, that’s a sign it’s your heart and vascular mitochondria that are having an issue.

Dr. Sandi: Such good points. Is that a way that we can assess then the health of our mitochondria, simple tests like that, or is there other ways we could be measuring?

Siobhan: Yeah. This is such an interesting topic because, once again, people think about their mitochondria as just this invisible thing, like how can you figure out what they’re doing? And so, I’ve had a lot of discussions. And I will say there’s no real conclusive clinical test, because I think that’s what everyone wants. But I think there’s also a lot of things you can notice about your body that can give you a sense of how well your mitochondria are doing.

And so, for sure, it is that fatigue that is unexplained. So, for instance, I just talked about iron. Iron deficiency can cause fatigue, but if you’ve measured iron and you’ve measured a lot of other nutrients that can cause fatigue and you’re not having issues with those and you’re still having fatigue, it might be your mitochondria.

And so, what I would say is the only way you can really test that is if you are feeling fatigue that’s unexplained, and especially I think people when they get to a certain age, they just feel more fatigued, especially at the end of the day. If it’s unexplained, “I just don’t feel like the way I used to,” that is where I say, it could be your mitochondria.

And there’s a lot of different kinds of, I would say, diets and sort of routines that you could do, but one of the easiest ways to prop up your mitochondria is through supplementation. So, there’s MitoQ, and I can tell you a little bit about how MitoQ works, why it protects mitochondria. But there’s also NAD precursors. And NAD, of course, is a very important factor in how mitochondria make energy. So, if you can increase your NAD and increase use of NAD in your mitochondria, that’s gonna give you more energy. And then there’s also, I would say, really more simple things you can do. Have a lot of polyphenols in your diet. And polyphenols are these things that are in fruit and vegetables that help with the sort of antioxidant response of your mitochondria as well, too.

So, if you take a lot of these things and you find that your fatigue level starts to alleviate a little bit, that’s probably a sign that your mitochondria were really the issue.

I will say, one thing that is now coming to, I would say, more appreciation of how you can look at your mitochondria are these special tests. And for instance, you can… So, a coach could have, for instance, the ability to…what are some of these, I would say, mitochondrial function tests, and these are called mescreen and MitoSwab. And so, they’re tests that you can do at home. You can, for instance, swab your cheek and get some cheek cells sent into a lab. And they can actually look at how well your mitochondria are making energy, how much oxidative stress your mitochondria are making, how efficient your mitochondria are.

So, that’s one thing that you can do. That’s a bit more expensive, but it is something that is, I think, growing, and I’m hoping that as we get into more technology for assessing mitochondria, things also become cheaper as well.

Dr. Sandi: Sure. So, they can talk to clients about going ahead and getting those tests. Let’s talk about MitoQ. MitoQ, I was so excited when I first heard of this. How did this come into being? What does it do? And then we can talk about usage and appropriate dosage.

Siobhan: Yeah. So, MitoQ is a really fascinating molecule. And I started hearing about it, I would say, maybe 15 years ago. And I was thrilled when I heard about how it worked because it’s so unique. And the way it was basically invented is these two scientists in New Zealand were looking at how mitochondria, of course, start to dysfunction as you get older. And one of the reasons why they dysfunction is they start making less CoQ10. And CoQ10 is this endogenous antioxidant that mitochondria make, and have a very important role in getting rid of those free radicals in the mitochondria. But as you get older, and especially if you’re having diseases like cardiovascular disease, you have less and less CoQ10. And therefore, your mitochondria are getting damaged more and more.

So, they were thinking, all right, CoQ10, if you could get it into the mitochondria, that’d be great. But they also knew that if you take an oral CoQ10 supplement, almost none of it went to the mitochondria. And that’s because CoQ10 is a very large molecule, and it can’t pass through membranes. So, it’s usually made in the mitochondria, and that’s how it can protect you, but if it’s outside the mitochondria, there’s no transport system back in. So, it can help other parts of the body, CoQ10, but it can’t really help your mitochondria.

So, then these scientists were saying, “All right. What if we make a CoQ10 that can get into the mitochondria?” So, they took the kind of antioxidant part of the CoQ10, and they attached a molecular tag called triphenylphosphonium. Triphenylphosphonium or TPP is very positively charged. And basically attaching that onto the sort of CoQ10 kind of molecule allowed that molecule to get into the mitochondria, which is very negatively charged. It’s the most negatively charged part of the cell. So, it’s almost like this kind of instantaneous transport into the mitochondria.

So, once they did that and they started testing what they called MitoQ, they saw that up to 90% of MitoQ could get inside the mitochondria while something like CoQ10, maybe 5% of it did. And this was a huge game-changer because this was the first way you could actually target mitochondria effectively. And I’ve been studying mitochondria for decades, and this is a really hard thing to do. The mitochondria are very protected. They don’t allow a lot of things in because they’re so delicate in their ATP production process that if toxins could get inside the mitochondria, that would just wreak havoc on all of us. So, this is where…Yeah, exactly. And I can talk a little bit about how toxins can damage mitochondria just from the outside. But just to finish up how this kind of makes a huge difference in terms of how people can now assess mitochondria.

So, the fact that it went into the mitochondria, MitoQ, and nowhere else, made it so now people could really see what is mitochondrial oxidative stress doing. So, oxidative stress is everywhere, and I think people almost get a little bit bored by it. It’s like oxidative stress, antioxidants, we know those are everywhere. But what really seems to be the key to aging is mitochondria oxidative stress. There was no good way to really deal with that before. And with MitoQ, you could now target that mitochondrial oxidative stress and see how it could affect health.

And so, since then, there’s been 30 different clinical trials looking at MitoQ for all sorts of different things that could show mitochondrial dysfunction and the effects of oxidative stress. So, many trials on exercise, so, improving muscle strength, and performance, and muscle recovery. Many trials on vascular health, so, improving blood flow, improving blood pressure, making sure that the heart itself could actually generate more energy. So, I think that’s a really fantastic clinical result that I could go into.

But basically, almost every way that it was used in whatever system, MitoQ was showing amazing effects for the immune system, for liver health, for gut health. So, I think this is where it’s been really a phenomenal thing to now understand that mitochondrial oxidative stress could be at the origin of so many of these diseases. So, yeah. That’s…

Dr. Sandi: Well, yeah. I can… This is just so exciting. So, urolithin A is often postbiotic brought up as important for the mitochondria. So, what are…how is this different than urolithin A, so people don’t get confused?

Siobhan: Yeah. And I’ve been asked this quite a bit. So, urolithin A…and actually, I started at Nestle working on urolithin A, literally like a decade ago. So, I know a lot about it. It’s a mitophagy inducer. And mitophagy is basically this process where mitochondria that are starting to get old and are dysfunctioning basically need to get renewed. They need to get chewed up and recycled, made anew. And so, mitophagy, of course, is a very important target in aging. And so, that’s what urolithin A is targeting. It’s helping induce more of that mitophagy. I think that there have been some trials showing, for instance, it can help with muscle strength and things like that.

MitoQ is a mitochondria antioxidant and targeted at the mitochondria. So, it will basically go into the mitochondria, and basically suck up all those free radicals, neutralize them so that you don’t get that damage to your DNA, you don’t get that damage to your protein. So, if you wanna think about where they fit in, urolithin A versus MitoQ, urolithin A is great if your mitochondria are already damaged and you need to recycle them.

But I also say that you probably don’t wanna recycle them all the time. You also just want regular mitochondria kind of doing their thing and not being messed with. But for sure, mitochondria, every moment that they’re working, they’re gonna generate more oxidative stress. And so, MitoQ is there to protect the mitochondria against that oxidative stress throughout your day, throughout whatever you’re dealing with in terms of, as I said, toxins. We, for instance, have these interesting preclinical studies where MitoQ can protect against wildfire smoke, and microplastics, and heavy metals, things that can cause mitochondrial dysfunction. And urolithin A, I think, is something where it’s very important to turn over that mitochondria, but I would probably say it’s more useful in a concentrated kind of episodic effect at certain times. Yeah.

Dr. Sandi: That’s interesting. I’ve been taking urolithin A religiously at the maximum for quite some time, and had not really considered that one that I would cycle on and off. So, that’s interesting. But in terms of the best way to introduce MitoQ, how would you suggest if somebody is saying, yes, I’m really sold on this and I wanna start? There are people who would need more, people who might need less.

Siobhan: Yeah. So, it makes sense. So, I think this is where we do have different ways of people taking it. So, if you’re just concerned more about mitochondria maintenance, keeping your mitochondria healthy, making sure that these diseases I just mentioned are kept at bay, then I think 10 milligrams is quite sufficient. And that’s the most usual dose that people take it at.

If you do have, I would say, more of a health issue, more of a sort of serious concern about fatigue, or brain fog, or special muscle fatigue, or you have immune compromise, then I would probably go for a 20 milligram dose. Most of the clinical studies that we have been looked at a 20 milligram dose. So, it was efficacious.

But we also are aware that people feel a lot of effects from a 10 milligram dose as well, too. So, we’ve had a lot of customers say that, for instance, they were having that fatigue or they’re having a lot of joint pain, and they didn’t really know if that was mitochondria, but then they took MitoQ, and it started to go away. So, I think that’s a really interesting sort of sign of, yeah, what it’s doing because if you also think about mitochondria being at the heart of, for instance, inflammation, so, I said that mitochondria are very important for immune system responses. If your mitochondria are distressed and if they’re telling the rest of the cell that they’re distressed, they actually cause this immune response that produces a low-grade inflammation. And this is called inflammaging because it can induce a lot of damage over time, a lot of chronic damage.

And so, if you can calm down those mitochondria, get them back to normal, then a lot of that inflammation goes away. So, in the case of joint pain, that’s a lot of kind of inflammation that’s causing that joint pain, and if you can calm down the mitochondria a little bit with something like MitoQ, then it goes away. Or if you can calm down your mitochondria a little bit because, yeah, for instance, in your brain or in your heart, they’re a little bit stressed out, so they’re just not working as well, they’re not making as much energy, then suddenly you’re gonna have a lot more energy available because they’re not as stressed. So, that’s basically how it works.

Dr. Sandi: That makes sense. And I’ve been taking 20 first thing in the morning, but I figured at 76 years old, I would want to really take advantage of that 20 milligram, given the mitochondria’s…the impact aging has in general. But anyone who you’d be really cautious about, anything you’ve identified in your research of contraindications?

Siobhan: So far, not really. So, we’ve done a lot of research trying to understand does it have any interactions with medication. And obviously, we’ve not tested every medication there is. But for instance, it doesn’t seem to have any interactions with blood thinners or thyroid medication, because we get a lot of questions about that.

And in terms of people and if they’ve got underlying conditions, I would say, there’s no underlying condition that I would say stay away from this. And so, this is where we’ve had people from every kind of health issue possible…I can’t even tell you how many sort of questions we’ve had about I have this problem, I have this problem. And no one’s really told us that, oh, they had some really bad reaction from MitoQ that would make them think that they were making their health issue worse, for instance. So, usually, it’s the other way, it’s the opposite. So, yeah, as far as I know, it’s really safe for everyone to take.

Of course, there are, obviously, some states that you don’t wanna take MitoQ in. And if you’re pregnant, we don’t have any data, safety data on pregnant women. Though we do have an interesting study on MitoQ for preeclampsia that was funded by the Gates Foundation that we’re excited by, but that’s still running. So, we need to see how that looks. So, if you’re pregnant, don’t take MitoQ.

We have had a lot of fertility clinics say that it’s very useful for improving fertility rates. So, it’s fine to take up until the point of conception, but then after that, do not take it. And then same kind of thing, we don’t really have data on children. So, if you’re under 18, we would also probably advise that you don’t.

Other than that, I think, yeah, once again, if you’re taking any supplement, it’s important to talk to someone who’s taking care of your health, like your health coach, like a practitioner, just to check, because you never know. But overall, we haven’t had any issues.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. I’ve just been so excited about your work and the fact that you are evidence-based and are committed to doing the research behind it. This is absolutely wonderful, and it’s been a joy to talk to you and learn more about the work you do, the mitochondria, and MitoQ. And so, I know that our listeners are gonna be very interested. Where can they find you? Where can they find more about MitoQ?

Siobhan: Yeah. So, the easiest way is to go to mitoq.com. And so, that’s where you can actually buy some MitoQ, along with other things that can help support healthy aging.

If you’re interested in a lot of the clinical trials I just mentioned, another great resource is mitoquinol.org. That’s our research kind of arm, I would say, that helps people do research on mitoquinol, because there’s universities and professors all over the world that are interested in MitoQ. So, we work with Harvard, and Yale, and Cambridge University, and all these great universities. But, yeah, probably the best place to go is mitoq.com, just to get an overview of what it does and why it might be right for you.

Dr. Sandi: This has been just wonderful to talk with you today.

Siobhan: It was wonderful talking to you.