Q&A with MitoQ Chief Scientific Officer Siobhan Mitchell

The full episode dives deep into the significance of brain energy, gut health, appetite, and the serotonin-mood connection - which Siobhan has been studying for the past 20 years. They also demystify the misconceptions that surround oxidative stress and the impact of targeted vs. non-targeted antioxidants.

You can find the full episode here, or keep scrolling to read through some of our key take-aways from Siobhan.

Should I be worried about oxidative stress?

“Oxidative stress helps with keeping your muscles maintained and all the rest. But I would say oxidative stress, especially around the mitochondria, can be super bad. And this happens more and more as you age that you have more oxidative stress that goes beyond anything beneficial. And so I think anyone after around age 35 has to start thinking about oxidative stress as something they have to take care of.”

How does MitoQ compare to other antioxidants?

“A lot of antioxidants are really untargeted. If you take vitamin C or Selenium for example, it's probably not going into the right places. The mitochondrial targeted antioxidants make a lot more sense, and MitoQ, I would say is the only mitochondrial targeted antioxidant that you can get as a supplement. I think it’s different for everyone, but that's what makes it so much more effective.”

How does MitoQ support muscle growth?

“We have numerous studies showing that MitoQ can help with exercise recovery and improve exercise power. What we've shown is that having MitoQ on board while you're exercising helps take care of the oxidative stress so that your muscles can actually do a better job in terms of recovery – and also performance during very active, high-power types of workouts.”

Can MitoQ support post-menopausal women?

“We have one study right now that I think is really cool where they're giving MitoQ to women who are postmenopausal. Estrogen is really good at helping mitochondria deal with oxidative stress, and once you lose that estrogen, the heart health effects of exercise go way, way down. So all those heart health benefits [of exercise], like helping with aortic stiffness, almost completely disappear in post-menopausal women. And so, the MitoQ intervention is about making exercise more beneficial for post-menopausal women by helping the body deal with oxidative stress when estrogen isn’t doing its job anymore.”

Siobhan’s supplement stack

“I do love my brain as a neuroscientist. I am into protecting my brain in any way I can, so along with taking krill oil, that means that I also take curcumin. I take a bioavailable form, so something that's emulsified, and something that has black pepper in it so that helps get into the brain more. Curcumin has got anti-inflammatory effects, it helps make new neurons, it’s got all sorts of wonderful things that it does.”

“...And then something that I have really got into in the last few years is collagen. I religiously take collagen every day and I have upped my dose again. And I first started taking it, I think because I heard it was good for skin health, and then what I really noticed was that my joints felt so much better after running - I did not have that pain at all. And I didn't have that kind of feeling like I'm about to get injury, which was such a problem for me all my life. For that to suddenly go away was magical. So, I became a believer in collagen. I will say that I take collagen with vitamin C and I would take the collagen peptides, because collagen itself just gets degraded.”

“I liked the look of MitoQ 10 years ago when I was at Nestle, and I was looking at it thinking that this was the only mitochondrial targeted antioxidant I really believe would probably work in the mechanism that it's described in. I took it and I noticed a little bit of effect, but it was only 10 years later when I started taking it again that I really noticed an effect of having a lot more energy than I used to. I’m having less moments of ‘I'm done for the day, I don't want to do anything anymore’. Now I feel like I can get through the whole day and if I skip the MitoQ, then it feels like I cannot get through the whole day as well. I know energy is something everybody needs more of right now, so I think that MitoQ is the main supplement I have found works for energy.”

Learn more about the science of MitoQ