> The amount of mitochondria can change, if you exercise more and eat less sugar, the number of mitochondria in your body grows!
Why is that and what effect does it have?
Why is that and what effect does it have?
"exercise more" means "higher energy needs", and growing the amount of mitochondria would be adaptive.
"eat less sugar" means less anaerobic energy production, I guess. Thus more aerobic energy production in exchange.
Further, if the mitochondria is being asked to make more ATP than it can aerobically, then it will skip the final respiratory step and respire without oxygen (anaerobically). This causes a build up of lactate in the cells that is not tolerated above a certain level, I believe due to it raising acidity levels in the cell.
You’ll often hear athletes and coaches talk about lactate threshold and Functional Threshold Power (FTP). This is all to do with mitochondria function.