MitoQ's chief science officer joins forces with longevity podcast host Nathalie Niddam

Nathalie Niddam, holistic nutritionist and longevity educator, is a trailblazer in the sphere of longevity and healthspan - focusing on strategies that range from health tech to ancestral health to resilience training. As the host of The Longevity Podcast, Nathalie has built a reputation as a science-driven advocate for helping people live vibrant, joyful lives well into their 50s, 60s, and beyond. 

With her unique blend of expertise as a biohacker, nutritionist, epigenetic coach, and peptide expert, Nathalie brings both scientific rigor and practical wisdom to the complex world of aging optimization. Her podcast has become a go-to resource for cutting-edge research on nutrition, biohacking, longevity, peptides, bioregulators, and health technology. 

We're excited to share that Dr. Siobhan Mitchell, PhD, MitoQ's Chief Science Officer, recently joined Nathalie on The Longevity Podcast for an illuminating conversation about mitochondrial health and its central role in the aging process. 

Inside the science: Key insights from the conversation 

Dr. Mitchell shared fascinating insights about why mitochondrial health is so crucial to our overall wellbeing and longevity. Here are some highlights from their discussion: 

Question 1: 

Q: In terms of health span and lifespan, let's talk about how the mitochondria affect the full system and why they become a very upstream way of affecting aging. 

A: Everyone knows, for instance, that your muscles start to decline and your exercise performance starts to decline in your 20s, and research has really shown that that's due to lots of changes in mitochondrial function. Your mitochondria are starting to show the first signs of aging. 

Cognition is another example—you will have cognitive decline once again in your 20s. Things like reaction time start to go down and just go down and never come up again, and these are also linked to mitochondrial function. 

So huge energy-use areas like your brain, your heart, and liver are where we see that mitochondrial function, once it starts to decline, you're going to have less function. 

Question 2: 

Q: The chronological clock is going to continue to roll. Can we do something to slow down the aging of our cells and can we repair them to a degree where we say we're reversing our biological age? 

A: Because MitoQ is good at decreasing oxidative stress—especially in the mitochondria—it has powerful downstream effects on the pathways linked to longevity. 

It helps reduce DNA damage, activates protective proteins called sirtuins that supports mitophagy (your body’s way of replacing old, underperforming mitochondria with fresh, healthy ones). 

MitoQ has also been shown to increase AMPK, which is tied to better metabolism and blood sugar control, and NRF2, a key resilience pathway that helps your body prepare for stress so you can age better. 

So, what does this mean when it hits all these longevity pathways? In a clinical study, older adults who took 20mg of MitoQ for six weeks showed blood vessels that functioned as if they were 15–20 years younger. In other words, by supporting these cellular longevity pathways, MitoQ is helping your body age more gracefully from the inside out. 

Key themes you'll learn throughout the episode 

This compelling conversation between Dr. Mitchell and Nathalie covered several topics that are fundamental to understanding aging and your mitochondria: