THE WIDER FIELD
Scientists & Institutions
The Researchers
Douglas C. Wallace
FounderChildren's Hospital of Philadelphia · University of Pennsylvania
Founder of human mitochondrial genetics
Established the maternal inheritance of mitochondrial DNA and the mitochondrial paradigm of metabolic and degenerative disease, aging, and cancer.
Vamsi K. Mootha
Systems biologyHarvard Medical School · Broad Institute · HHMI
Mitochondrial systems biology
Built MitoCarta, the reference inventory of the mammalian mitochondrial proteome, turning the organelle into a systematically mappable system.
Navdeep S. Chandel
SignalingNorthwestern University
Mitochondrial ROS as signal
Showed that mitochondria-derived reactive oxygen species act as deliberate signaling messengers, not merely damage — the mechanistic heart of hormesis.
Bruce M. Spiegelman
BiogenesisDana-Farber · Harvard Medical School
Mitochondrial biogenesis
Discovered PGC-1α, the master transcriptional coactivator that orchestrates the building of new mitochondria and adaptive thermogenesis.
Martin Picard
PsychobiologyColumbia University
Mitochondrial psychobiology
Reframed the mitochondrion from powerhouse to cellular processor, integrating metabolic, behavioral, and psychosocial inputs into systemic signals.
Johan Auwerx
MitophagyEPFL, Lausanne
Mitophagy & urolithin A
Demonstrated that urolithin A activates mitophagy and extends healthspan in model organisms, carrying the finding toward human trials.
Eric Verdin
Ketone signalingBuck Institute for Research on Aging
Ketone-body signaling
Showed that β-hydroxybutyrate is an endogenous histone-deacetylase inhibitor — a fuel molecule that doubles as an epigenetic signal.
Valter Longo
Randomized trialsUniversity of Southern California
Fasting-mimicking diet
Developed and trialed the fasting-mimicking diet, the strongest randomized evidence that structured eating shifts metabolic markers and biological age.
Satchidananda Panda
CircadianSalk Institute for Biological Studies
Circadian & time-restricted eating
Established that the timing of eating — independent of calories — reshapes metabolic health through the body's circadian and fuel-switching machinery.
Frank Madeo
AutophagyUniversity of Graz
Autophagy & spermidine
Showed that the dietary polyamine spermidine induces autophagy and extends lifespan — a food-borne route into cellular clearance.
Carlos López-Otín
Aging frameworkUniversity of Oviedo
Hallmarks of aging
Co-authored the hallmarks-of-aging framework, in which mitochondrial dysfunction sits among the defining, interconnected drivers of aging.
Rhonda Patrick, PhD
MicronutrientsFoundMyFitness · formerly CHORI, with Bruce Ames
Micronutrients, vitamin D & omega-3 signaling
Published in the FASEB Journal with Bruce Ames on the mechanism by which vitamin D and the marine omega-3s regulate serotonin synthesis, alongside work on micronutrient deficiency and DNA damage. Her public teaching popularizes that same literature.
Peter Attia, MD
Clinical translationEarly Medical · formerly NIH National Cancer Institute
Longevity, metabolic health & muscle
Trained as a surgeon and published peer-reviewed oncology and immunotherapy research at the NCI before moving into longevity practice. His metabolic-health-and-muscle framing is synthesis of the literature rather than his own primary science.
William W. Li, MD
AngiogenesisAngiogenesis Foundation · Harvard-trained physician
Angiogenesis & antiangiogenic dietary factors
Published peer-reviewed work on angiogenesis, wound healing, and diet-derived antiangiogenic compounds — including 'Tumor angiogenesis as a target for dietary cancer prevention' — which his books and talks then carry to a wide audience.
Thomas N. Seyfried
ContestedBoston College
Metabolic theory of cancer (contested)
Argues the contested hypothesis that cancer is fundamentally a mitochondrial metabolic disease — named here as active scientific debate, never as a basis for any claim.
Educators & Communicators
Public educators who popularize metabolic and mitochondrial ideas. Listed separately — they are communicators, not primary researchers, and any claim they make still has to trace to the cited peer-reviewed literature to enter the canon.
Stan Efferding
PractitionerThe Vertical Diet · world-record powerlifter
Whole foods, digestibility & micronutrient density
Built a practitioner's system around easily digested whole foods and micronutrient density as the engine of elite strength. Field-tested practice, not peer-reviewed research.
Vladimir Shmondenko (Anatoly)
CultureUkrainian powerlifter · online educator
Simple whole-food eating for real strength
The 'gym janitor' who out-lifts everyone on camera, powered by a plain, collagen-rich whole-food diet. Included as culture and demonstration — quiet strength over theatrical salt — never as evidence.
Dr. Eric Berg, DC
PopularizerDoctor of Chiropractic · health educator & author
Popular keto & intermittent-fasting education
One of the most-followed communicators on ketogenic eating, fasting, and cellular energy, translating metabolic concepts for a mass audience. A clinician-educator, not a primary researcher — his popular claims are framed here as outreach, and any specific assertion must still trace back to the cited peer-reviewed literature to enter the canon.
Thomas DeLauer
PopularizerYouTube educator · nutrition coach
Fasting, autophagy & mitochondrial biogenesis explainers
One of the largest YouTube channels reading fasting, autophagy, AMPK, and mitochondrial-biogenesis papers on camera for a general audience. Valuable as a bridge to the literature — the citations he reads are the evidence, not the video.
Paul Saladino, MD
ContestedAnimal-based diet advocate · physician
Animal-based eating & plant-toxin skepticism
Argues an animal-based diet on grounds of nutrient density and plant antinutrients, at very large scale online. Included as a prominent and openly contested position — much of it runs ahead of the evidence, and none of it enters the canon without a cited primary source.
Siim Land
PopularizerAuthor & YouTube educator · Estonia
Metabolic autophagy, longevity & mitochondrial hormesis
Writes and broadcasts intensively on autophagy, mTOR/AMPK cycling, and mitochondrial hormesis, summarising longevity papers for a large audience. A synthesist rather than a researcher — useful as an index into the literature.
Companies & Institutions
Amazentis / Timeline
Company · Lausanne
Urolithin A (Mitopure)
Spun out of EPFL research to develop urolithin A into a clinically studied mitophagy activator.
L-Nutra
Company · Los Angeles
Fasting-mimicking nutrition (ProLon)
Founded around Valter Longo's fasting-mimicking-diet research to translate the protocol into a food program.
Stealth BioTherapeutics
Company · Massachusetts
Mitochondria-targeted therapeutics
Develops peptides such as elamipretide aimed at the inner mitochondrial membrane in rare mitochondrial disease.
Elysium Health
Company · New York
NAD⁺ metabolism
Commercializes NAD⁺-precursor formulations rooted in sirtuin and cellular-energy research.
Pretzel Therapeutics
Company · Sweden / US
Mitochondrial DNA & biology
Drug-discovery company targeting mitochondrial genome regulation and quality control.
MitoQ
Company · New Zealand
Mitochondria-targeted antioxidant
Develops a mitochondria-targeted coenzyme-Q compound studied for oxidative-stress signaling.
Broad Institute
Research institute · Cambridge, MA
MitoCarta & mitochondrial genomics
Home of the MitoCarta inventory and large-scale mitochondrial systems biology.
Salk Institute
Research institute · La Jolla, CA
Circadian metabolism & mtDNA stress
Center for time-restricted-eating and mitochondrial-signaling research.
Buck Institute
Research institute · Novato, CA
Aging & bioenergetics
Dedicated aging-research institute studying ketone signaling, mitophagy, and proton leak.
Karolinska Institutet
Research institute · Stockholm
mtDNA & aging
Long-standing center for mitochondrial-genome and aging research.
Metabolic Hardware
The instrument makers belong in this record too. They generate the substrate and recovery data this framework interprets — glucose response, fuel switching, expenditure, sleep and heart-rate variability — which is what separates a cooked decision from a guess.
Dexcom
Company · San Diego
Continuous glucose monitoring (Stelo)
Built the continuous glucose sensor into a consumer instrument, including Stelo, an over-the-counter CGM for people not on insulin. Continuous glucose is the closest thing to a live readout of how a meal is actually handled — the substrate signal the framework reads rather than guesses at.
Abbott / FreeStyle Libre
Company · Chicago
OTC metabolic CGM (Lingo)
The FreeStyle Libre sensor platform underwrites much of the world's CGM data, and Lingo extends it to a non-diabetic, metabolic-awareness audience. Its long clinical record is what makes consumer glucose data trustworthy enough to reason from.
Levels Health
Company · New York
CGM software & interpretation layer
A software layer over third-party sensors that turns raw glucose traces into meal-by-meal patterns. It matters here because interpretation, not the sensor, is where a number becomes a cooking decision.
Lumen (MetaFlow Ltd.)
Company · Tel Aviv
Handheld CO₂ breath analysis for fuel switching
A handheld device that infers which fuel the body is burning from the CO₂ concentration of a single breath — a consumer proxy for respiratory quotient. Validation work against metabolic carts has appeared in peer-reviewed venues including FASEB and JMIR reports (2023–24), making metabolic flexibility something a cook can actually observe.
KORR Medical Technologies
Company · Salt Lake City
Indirect calorimetry — VO₂ max & RMR
Makes the CardioCoach line of indirect-calorimetry hardware measuring VO₂ max and resting metabolic rate. This is the clinical-grade metabolic cart at a price point clinics and gyms can reach, so ground-truth substrate measurement isn't confined to research labs.
DexaFit / DEXA Body
Franchise clinics · United States
DEXA body composition, VO₂ max & RMR access
The clinic layer that puts DEXA body-composition scanning, VO₂ max testing, and RMR measurement within walking distance of ordinary people. Access is the contribution: composition and expenditure are the denominators every dietary claim quietly depends on.
Oura Ring
Company · Helsinki
Validated sleep & heart-rate variability
A ring-form sensor for sleep staging, nocturnal heart rate, HRV, and temperature. A 2025 peer-reviewed comparison study placed it among the strongest validated consumer sleep and HRV devices — the recovery half of the picture that food alone can't report.
Ultrahuman
Company · Bangalore
Ring AIR paired with M1 CGM
Pairs a smart ring with an Abbott-sensor-based CGM so glucose response and recovery are read in one place, and publishes its own validation studies. The pairing is the point: a substrate signal is far more legible next to sleep and HRV.
WHOOP
Company · Boston
Strain, recovery & sleep debt
A screenless band built around a daily strain-and-recovery loop with sleep-debt accounting. It quantifies the demand side — what the day actually cost — which is the context any meal is answering.
Hume Band
Company · United States
Screen-free metabolic-capacity wearable
A deliberately screen-free band tracking HRV, sleep, and skin temperature toward a single metabolic-capacity picture, with its 2.0 generation launched in 2025. The restraint is notable: fewer numbers, aimed at trend rather than moment-to-moment reaction.
Names and organizations are listed to attribute the peer-reviewed science to those who produced it. None of these researchers or companies is affiliated with, or endorses, Mitochondrial Cuisine.
·No dish, ingredient, technique, fuel state, or dietary pattern described in this work treats, cures, or prevents any disease. The peer-reviewed science is cited to the researchers who produced it; the culinary theory, the design principles, and the honest line are the founder's.