" The team then assessed the efficacy of UA by looking at cellular and mitochondrial health biomarkers in the participants' blood and muscle tissue. The results were compelling: UA stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis—the process by which cells increase mitochondrial mass—in the same way as regular exercise.
UA is the only known compound that re-establishes cells' ability to recycle defective mitochondria. "
The point of a biomarker is that we think/hope/hypothesize that we can use it as a surrogate for the thing we're actually interested in, so that we have something measurable on shorter timescales. Unfortunately, this assumption is often incorrect, and we won't actually know for years.
How do we often test for diabetes.. cancers.. many many clinical conditions? Biomarkers. So they are not practically unreliable in general.
What do you know about the particular biomarker employed in the study to say that it is unreliable ?
Long term degenerative conditions are some of the most difficult problems for such validation, due to time, cost, and the complexity of risk in real populations.
I don't know anything about how well the current study actually links to mitochondrial biogenesis, but I know that we don't have satisfactory interventional biomarkers for a process as complex as aging. By all means continue researching this, but I think it's eminently sensible to be skeptical at this point.
Improving ATP efficiency is huge... i agree with you it may not mean stronger bones and more elastic skin...but we do know aging (less elastic skin and weaker bones) is related to the bodies breakdown in ATP supply/demand/conversion.
I just don’t think you can gloss over mitochondria inprovement as no benefit...it’s literally an improvement in energy (more energy with less calories), it’s a benefit unto itself.
It's entirely plausible that, in the modern world, this is actually a negative.
Also, for all anyone knows, just "improving" mitochondria might also hurt due to increased production of free radicals and other strongly oxidizing species by those improved mitochondria.
In cancer, we see all the time the ability to get a cell we know is important into a tumor does not, necessarily, associate with clinical benefit. The same goes here. The ability to improve one small piece of biology does not mean, necessarily, that you will see a larger, emergent effect. Biology is much more complicated than that.
No...there are numerous studies on the proven benefits of improved mitochondrial function/capacity. One of the benefits is cellular anti-aging.
Also, you’re assuming that “cellular anti-aging” is good for your health. You could be right, but you could be wrong.