Live data from Hacker News

Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

science.org

11–20 of 325 posts

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#11

So, what products would work as "sleep in a pill", at least on the "not being exhausted" part (I suppose the "not getting crazy because of lack of REM sleep" would be different) ?

Speculative: Gentle mitochondrial uncouplers that cross the BBB very well, possibly in conjunction with elamipretide, MitoQ, MitoTEMPO, or something similar.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#12
post #6

Something I thought was just an internet tale: mitochondria are close descendants of bacteria, and so taking antibiotics will potentially harm them. But turns out this is actually rooted in science ...

It's specifically Quinolones which can harm mitochondria. There's no ongoing concern for something like Penicillin. We also shouldn't expect there to be mitochondrial risk from a fungi-derived chemical like Penicillin, since fungi also have mitochondria.

In general you want the weakest and most targeted antibiotic for the job. Most people will never need a Quinolone, and you should be skeptical whenever sophisticated antibiotics are prescribed. Why not Penicillin? should have an answer involving the name of a bacteria, not the doctor's personal preference, or a relationship with a company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinolone_antibiotic#Cellular_...

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#19
post #9
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the ancient mystery of why we need sleep might have just been answered. I would be very surprised if sleep would serve only one purpose. In complex interconnected systems you usually don't get far with monocausal explanations.

It would make sense if there was a monocausal explanation of why ancient ancestors started sleeping, but then other body functions started making use of the sleeping system since it was at hand.

Hey, that's Hyrum's Law!
Post reply on HN