Bile acids and estrogen are linked not because the body made a mistake, but because it is extraordinarily efficient. Human physiology is built around conservation. Anything energetically expensive or biologically powerful is reused whenever possible. Cholesterol is reused. Bile acids are reused. Steroid hormones like estrogen are reused. The liver and gut work together as a recycling plant, constantly deciding what to keep, what to modify, and what to throw away. Estrogen and bile acids happen to share the same conveyor belt. This is why problems with digestion, stool, gallbladder function, thyroid output, stress, or the microbiome so often show up as “hormone issues.” The hormones are downstream. The traffic system is upstream. To understand the connection, we start with the simplest possible truth: estrogen does not simply rise or fall on its own. Estrogen exposure is the result of production, conversion, binding, recycling, and elimination. Bile acids influence three of those five steps. That alone explains why anti-estrogen strategies so often fail. Bile acids are usually taught as digestive detergents. You eat fat, the gallbladder squeezes, bile comes out, fats get emulsified, end of story. That explanation is incomplete. Bile acids are also signaling molecules that talk directly to the liver, the gut, immune cells, and the microbiome. They regulate which bacteria survive. They turn genes on and off. They decide how aggressively the liver detoxifies hormones. Think of bile acids less like dish soap and more like traffic police. They don’t just clean up fat. They control flow. Estrogen’s journey through the body follows a predictable arc. Estrogen is synthesized or converted from precursors, used in tissues like breast, bone, brain, muscle, and reproductive organs, and then whatever is left over is sent to the liver. The liver’s job is not to destroy estrogen but to neutralize it temporarily. It does this by conjugating estrogen, mainly through glucuronidation and sulfation. These chemical tags make estrogen water-soluble and biologically quieter.

Cellular respiration is the most misunderstood process in biology, not because it is complicated, but because it has been taught backwards.Most people learn about it as a series of pathways, diagrams, and chemical reactions that live in textbooks. Glycolysis. Krebs cycle. Electron transport chain. ATP. Oxygen. These are presented as isolated facts to remember rather than a living system to understand. Cellular respiration is not an academic concept. It is the process that decides whether a cell functions, adapts, inflames, degenerates, or dies. It is the reason training works or stops working. It is the reason recovery feels easy or impossible. It is the reason cognition sharpens or fades. It is the reason disease appears not as an enemy, but as a strategy. At its core, cellular respiration is the process by which a cell converts fuel into usable energy while keeping itself intact. That’s it. Everything else is detail. Every cell in your body, from a muscle fiber to a neuron in your hippocampus, has the same fundamental problem to solve every second of every day: how do I turn fuel and oxygen into energy without damaging myself in the process? If the cell can solve that problem cleanly, the organism thrives. If it cannot, the cell shifts priorities. Growth is delayed. Repair is prioritized. Inflammation increases. Sensitivity to stress rises. Output drops. This is not failure. This is intelligence.To understand why cellular respiration sits at the root of nearly every breakdown in the body, we need to rebuild it from first principles, not pathways.Energy is not optional. Cells do not “like” energy. They require it to maintain structure, order, and communication. Without energy, proteins misfold, membranes leak, signals distort, and systems lose coordination. Life is not sustained by structure alone. It is sustained by continuous energy flow. Energy can be dangerous.The same process that allows a cell to extract energy from food also generates reactive byproducts. Think of energy production like fire. Controlled fire cooks food and keeps you warm. Uncontrolled fire burns the house down. Cellular respiration is the art of controlled combustion. Inside the cell, mitochondria serve as the primary site of this controlled energy production. They are often called the “powerhouses of the cell,” but this metaphor is misleading. A better analogy is that mitochondria are regulators, not generators. They are more like governors on an engine than the engine itself. Mitochondria decide how fast fuel is burned, which fuel is preferred, how much energy is produced, and whether energy production remains clean or becomes damaging. They also decide when the cell should slow down, speed up, repair itself, or initiate cell death.

June - August 2024 I was living in Portugal, lovely sun in the morning. Morning steps, cold plunge and sauna everyday. Super cool room on a night. I was on TRT and GH and RHR got down to about 48bpm. This year June 2025 I started reta, still on gh, trt......and I only went up to 3mg a week. My RHR has gone up to almost 70. Even when I stopped in for 4 weeks it didn't really move lower. Now I'm not sure why it's staying spiked, I was considering adding in a low dose Nebivolol but I know I shouldn't need to take something just to counteract that. We all know RETA increases RHR in a lot. But what else can I look at to see if anything else is causing this? Thanks

I'm working with a chronic pain patient who, based on comprehensive assessment, also suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME). She experiences extreme physical intolerance - her entire body is in pain, and even minimal physical exertion triggers an overwhelming response manifesting as exhaustion and increased pain (post-exertional malaise). Additionally, she reports brain fog and constant energy crashes. She describes her sleep as non-restorative. Alongside movement therapy to address her orthopedic issues (particularly back pain), I want to focus primarily on supporting her mitochondrial health. I'll be working with her for six months and have developed the following protocol. I'd appreciate any critique or feedback from the community. Note: Everything has to be done with OTC supplementation. Base Support (Ongoing throughout program): - PEA: 1.2g daily (pain management) - Saffron extract (mood support & stress response optimization) Phase 1: Weeks 1-4 - Foundation Establishing basic nutritional support to create an environment where mitochondria can begin to adapt: - Creatine monohydrate: 3g - Selenium: 200mcg - Zinc bisglycinate: 25mg - Vitamin D3 (dose based on levels) - B-complex vitamin (active forms) - Glycine: 10-15g daily - NAC: 800mg twice daily - R-Alpha Lipoic Acid: 200mg - Geranylgeraniol: 150mg - CoQ10 (as Ubiquinol): 200mg Phase 2: Weeks 5-12 - Membrane Restoration & Stabilization Adding to the foundation protocol: For membrane restoration: - Phosphatidylserine: 150mg twice daily - CDP-Choline: 250mg twice daily - Shark liver oil (alkylglycerols): 100mg three times daily - Omega-3 fatty acids: 700mg three times daily For additional membrane stabilization: - Ergothioneine: 10mg once daily - Astaxanthin: 12mg once daily (Note: Omega-3s will continue as part of ongoing support; other supplements in this phase will be tapered off after week 12) Phase 3: Weeks 13-24 - Mitochondrial Reset Focus on mitophagy and biogenesis. Adding to foundation:

Plasmalogens are one of the oldest, most fundamental molecules inside the human body, yet almost no one talks about them. If you imagine the cell as a city, plasmalogens are the shock-absorbing pavement, the insulation around every electrical wire, and the structural glue that determines how well the buildings hold up under stress. They make up a significant portion of the membranes around our cells, especially in the brain, heart, immune system, and mitochondria. They’re not used as fuel, they’re not signaling hormones, and they’re not vitamins they are architectural lipids, meaning their entire purpose is to create the “physical environment” inside which every biochemical reaction occurs. When this architecture is strong, cells communicate clearly, mitochondria keep up with energy demands, neurons fire smoothly, and tissues age more slowly. When plasmalogens decline as they do with aging, chronic inflammation, metabolic disease, and overtraining the whole system becomes more fragile. Surfaces become leaky. Signals get distorted. Energy becomes harder to make. And we see it clinically as brain fog, slower recovery, impaired metabolism, chronic fatigue, mood instability, and higher disease risk. To understand plasmalogens, you first need to understand the membrane. The membrane is the barrier between chaos and order. It keeps the inside of the cell different from the outside. But it’s not a hardened shell; it’s a flexible, dynamic, constantly-moving layer of phospholipids, cholesterol, proteins, and microdomains. Think of it like a high-tech trampoline. Every receptor sits in this trampoline. Every transporter is anchored to it. Every signal, from insulin binding to the NMDA receptor firing, depends on how stable and well-organized that trampoline is. Plasmalogens sit inside this membrane like reinforced beams with a special vinyl-ether bond. This bond is unique: it actually absorbs oxidative damage like a sacrificial shield. Instead of letting free radicals tear up the membrane, plasmalogens get hit first and protect the surrounding structure. This is why they are most concentrated in tissues with the highest oxidative stress—neurons, muscle, heart, immune cells, and mitochondria. When plasmalogens are low, cell membranes become thinner, more fragile, and more prone to dysfunction. Receptors do not cluster properly, inflammation becomes easier to trigger, and mitochondria lose their tight coupling between electron flow and ATP production. In other words, membranes lose intelligence.