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Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

science.org

161–170 of 325 posts

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#161
post #71
post #66

Sleep is super important. I’ve seen too many workaholic types that barely sleep. So many of these folks end up with serious issues later in life.

Workaholism is always just manifesting underlying psychical issues, be it some form of OCD, deep unhappiness with one's life and escapism from emptiness or similar. Such state manifests in many destructive behaviors, which then like in case of sleep create their own forces of destruction. One can't escape psychology, one thing no school taught me (and they should have since we all deal with this in some way! plus its…

Maybe some people just enjoy working.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#162
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plants breathe out oxygen, like we breathe out the other one.

That's true for photosynthesis but don't they still have oxygen respiration (i.e. oxidizing sugar for energy?)

yes, at night they breath oxygen. Maybe they sleep during the day.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#163
post #136

Increasing the count and efficiency of mitochondria is gonna be a big deal. ME/CFS is caused by these organelles not working as they should.

It’s not clear to me CFS is really a thing. To me it’s a catch all BS diagnosis that basically says “we don’t know what this is, so we’re calling it CFS”.

It is definitely a thing. It all fits with the mitochondria theory: after physical or mental exhaustion (increased metabolic turnover provided by mitochondria) the recovery time (sleep) for ME/CFS patients is increased to such a degree that normal daily tasks gets them into a energy low they can't recover from anymore.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA also acknowledges this: > There could well be many other functions that have since joined in with the sleep cycle (such as memory consolidation), but the authors hypothesize that mitochondrial function is the process that underlies all of them. If you need oxygen, then you need sleep!

> If you need oxygen, then you need sleep! Do plants sleep? Don't some insects, like flies, live without any sleep?

Insects do sleep, the paper we're discussing is a study of flies.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#165

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) ?

I would look at PQQ, CoQ10, B-complex, GlyNAC or just glycine, AXA1125, R ALA, DCA, creatine; those are known to improve mitochondrial fitness under various mechanisms. Add 99%-100% dark chocolate and exercise, both of which act similarly to PQQ. Theanine for increasing GABA, primary calming neurotransmitter.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#166

The heart beats non-stop and doesn't sleep. How does this fit with this theory?

The paper's core idea isn’t that all cells that use mitochondria need sleep, but rather:

> In a specific subset of sleep-inducing neurons, mitochondrial electron leak builds up when energy is available but underused during neuronal inactivity. That mismatch acts as a sleep signal.

The heart doesn’t fall into that subset.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#167
post #67

The paper is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09261-y Not an expert in this area, but the essay feels a bit like an oversimplification. Not only is this in flies, but I wasn't entirely convinced this isn't about rest rather than sleep per se. It's a cool paper, interesting to read and read about, but my hunch is there's more steps in the chain, and am not sure it will replicate in humans or even mamma…

It is an awful paper and I am a very expert in this area. This is science, alas.

Please elaborate.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#168
post #88
post #66

Sleep is super important. I’ve seen too many workaholic types that barely sleep. So many of these folks end up with serious issues later in life.

One best things about getting laid off from work is that one get to sleep as long as one want in the morning!

Yes, that’s the “lay” that you will be doing.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#169
post #155

> If you need oxygen, then you need sleep! Would this also correlate with the desire to yawn? I always heard that yawning was a response to needing more oxygen.

It has nothing to do with oxygen; Yawning is caused by other people yawning in the vicinity.

This isn’t the case for my dog or infant.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#170
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true for photosynthesis but don't they still have oxygen respiration (i.e. oxidizing sugar for energy?)

yes, at night they breath oxygen. Maybe they sleep during the day.

But their cells still consume oxygen during the day, don't they? In sunshine they produce more oxygen than they consume, but the cells are still fundamentally powered by mitochondria oxidizing glucose
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