Urolithin A – The Dishwasher in Your Cell’s Kitchen

The last few decades have marked tremendous developments in our scientific understanding of the aging process. Aging can be broadly defined as a progressive and time-dependent deterioration of cellular function inflicted by the accumulation of cellular damage. Nine characteristics or “hallmarks” of aging have been described by scientists, including things like genomic instability and deregulated nutrient-sensing. A major characteristic and one that is associated with many of the other hallmarks is mitochondrial dysfunction.Mitochondria (if you recall from 8^th grade biology) are a type of organelle – a specialized cell structure – that among their many functions, are responsible for converting the foods we eat into the cellular energy we know as ATP. Our cells contain lots of mitochondria, especially those with high metabolic activity like the heart, brain, and muscles. The ATP they produce drives many of the processes in cells, including jobs central to healthy aging.Within each cell, the mitochondria are constantly reshaping themselves to adapt to our various lifestyles and environment. They are kind of like chefs in a busy restaurant kitchen. A decline in this mitochondrial number and function plays a key role in the aging process – like how a poorly staffed kitchen plays a key role in the quality of your dinner. Now think about the number of wrong orders that pile up in an understaffed kitchen. That’s what happens to proteins when mitochondrial dysfunction occurs with aging. The whole restaurant (or cell) becomes less and less efficient.The good news is that scientists seem to have discovered an extra dishwasher to help your cells clean up those “wrong order” proteins! The dishwasher’s name is urolithin A.Urolithin A is produced by certain bacteria in gut when you consume foods like pomegranates, berries, and nuts. Here’s the catch… only about 30 to 40% of people have the right gut bacteria to produce urolithin A and even those people only produce it in tiny amounts. A recent human clinical trial showed that oral supplementation of urolithin A (500 mg per day) was able to improve mitochondrial health in skeletal muscle in older adults after just 28-days.Results from this exciting research show promise for a number of age-related disorders such as sarcopenia. The findings represent a new era of nutrition science that may help address age-associated cellular decline through revitalizing mitochondria!*This post was sponsored by Nestle Health Sciences. The sponsor had no role in the content of the post and the opinions expressed are (as always) mine alone. Always talk with your registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) or other qualified credentialed health professional regarding dietary supplement use.