Dr. Chris Masterjohn, PhD - Mitochondria, Micronutrients, and How Nutrition Actually Drives Longevity
When cellular energy production is impaired, no diet, supplement, or health protocol can work as intended.
In this episode, Dr. Chris Masterjohn, nutrition scientist and expert in micronutrients and metabolism, explains why mitochondrial function is the limiting factor behind stalled progress, persistent fatigue, and supplements that stop working over time.
He breaks down why vitamin D supplementation often creates new problems when it is taken without proper nutrient balance, how high doses can disrupt other systems in the body, and why sunlight has biological effects that vitamin D pills alone cannot replicate.
This conversation explores:
Why mitochondrial bottlenecks explain most energy and health plateaus
How micronutrient deficiencies undermine supplements and biohacks
When creatine supports cellular energy and why it works differently than most supplements
Why vitamin D supplementation can backfire without context and balance
Why sunlight affects biology in ways supplements cannot replace
How diet, fasting, and exercise interact with mitochondrial capacity
Why optimizing one system often breaks another without proper foundations
Chapters:
00:00:00 Trailer
00:01:25 Why Testing Beats Guessing (Baselines, Context, and Real-World Fatigue)
00:05:44 What Mitochondria Actually Do (And What “Dysfunction” Looks Like)
00:08:44 Energy Triage: Allocation vs Production
00:16:56 Mitochondrial Bottlenecks and Why Diet Needs Differ
00:22:54 Exercise Types and How They Target Mitochondria
00:27:03 Why Fasting and Feeding Signals Matter
00:37:18 Creatine Explained: The Cellular Energy System
00:38:59 CoQ10: When It Helps (And When It Backfires)
00:52:42 Creatine Side Effects and How to Fix Them
00:57:47 Self-Experimentation: How to Avoid Fooling Yourself
01:06:08 Hypoxia, Altitude, and Mitochondrial Stress
01:12:49 Sunlight as a Mitochondrial Signal (Why Light Matters Beyond Vitamin D)
01:28:01 Vitamin D Targets: Functional Medicine Ranges vs Real Individual Response
01:29:50 Why Higher Vitamin D Can Create Nutrient Imbalances (A, K2, and Tradeoffs)
01:31:22 Sleep and Brain Energy: Why Sleep Is a “Reset” Mechanism
01:35:19 Why Placebo Effects Confuse Supplement Results
01:39:03 Testing Energy Metabolism Beyond Glucose (What to Look For)
01:40:55 Red Light Therapy: Dosing, Limits, and Individual Response
01:51:21 Sauna, Detox, Heat Adaptation, Cold Exposure, and “Borrowing” Energy
02:06:28 Mitochondrial Turnover: Clearing the Bad Ones and Rebuilding New
02:09:44 Autophagy Myths and Why They Don’t Match Real-World Outcomes
02:26:50 GLP-1 Drugs vs Fixing the Food Environment
02:38:45 Final Thoughts: Fix the Environment Before the Intervention
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Learn more about Dr Chris Masterjohn’s work:
Website: https://www.chrismasterjohn-phd.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrismasterjohn/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@chrismasterjohn