evidence-graded, updated regularly, free to browse

What actually helps your mitochondria? Rated by the evidence, not the hype.

Mitochondria power nearly every cell in your body: they turn food and oxygen into the energy that runs your heart, brain and muscles. Their slow decline is linked to fatigue, aging, and diseases from Alzheimer's to heart failure, which makes knowing what actually helps them worth getting right. This site rates 87+ foods, drugs, supplements and lifestyle habits, sleep, exercise, fasting, sauna, cold exposure and more, for evidence, benefit and safety, plus VDAC1 research explained in plain language.

Cross-section of a mitochondrion with VDAC1 pores
★ the heart of the site

Mitochondrial Health Ratings

87 interventions, foods, drugs, supplements and lifestyle pillars like sleep, exercise, fasting, sauna and light, each graded for evidence, benefit and safety, and linked to the research. The honest, filterable database I wish existed. This is the one to start with.

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87interventions
graded

01Everything else, at a glance

Everything here in one glance, pick a door. New? The 5-minute VDAC1 primer is the gentlest start.

02Fresh off the notebook

The latest bits. Full archive lives in news.

paper of the week
22 Jul 2026Cell Signalling

In septic T cells, VDAC1 oligomers open a pore that leaks mtDNA and drives inflammation, and VBIT-12 shuts it down

A Shanghai team watched VDAC1 clump up, leak mtDNA, and trip the cGAS–STING alarm in immune cells, and calmed the whole thing down with the oligomerization blocker VBIT-12.

the full story →

→ Ren et al., Cell Signalling 2026 · doi.org/10.1016/j.cellsig.2026.112642

4 Aug 2026Cellular Signalling

Losing the mitochondrial quality-control genes HtrA2 or PINK1 makes cells more likely to turn senescent after DNA damage

A De Montfort University team knocked out three separate mitochondrial quality-control genes in mouse cells and found that losing HtrA2 or the mitophagy regulator PINK1 made cells noticeably more prone to senescence after DNA-damaging drugs, while the DNA damage response itself didn't fully explain which cells actually became senescent.

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1 Aug 2026Cellular Signalling

In diabetic retinopathy, a calcium channel called TRPM7 drives VDAC1 up and forces open the mitochondrial pore in retinal cells

A Southwest Medical University team traced hyperglycemia-driven damage in retinal Muller cells to a calcium channel, TRPM7, that pushes VDAC1 expression up and forces open the mitochondrial permeability pore, and silencing TRPM7 protected the cells.

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03VDAC1 in 3D

The actual crystal structure of human VDAC1 (PDB 2JK4), grab it and spin. Nineteen β-strands rolled into a barrel, N-terminal helix tucked inside. (Needs internet to load the atoms.)

> rcsb://2JK4, human VDAC1loading…
Loading the 3D viewer… nothing showing up? You're likely offline, the structure streams from the RCSB Protein Data Bank.