On this episode, Jon D. Kaiser, MD taught us about the mitochondrial health and chronic disease connection. Dr. Kaiser is a mitochondrial specialist with over thirty years of clinical and research experience in applying functional medicine approaches to treat complex medical conditions, including HIV/AIDS, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia and long COVID. Dr. Kaiser began his career as an HIV/AIDS specialist in San Francisco at the height of the HIV epidemic. He found that many of his patients needed nutritional and mitochondrial support, especially after manifesting antiviral medication side effects. He developed protocols to help patients improve their baseline health with an original nutraceutical formulation that supports mitochondrial health. Dr. Kaiser joined James to discuss how he has applied his protocols to help patients with other chronic illnesses and post-infection syndromes. Tune in to learn more from Dr. Kaiser about the following topics:        Lifestyle factors that support healing beyond other integrative interventions          How mitochondria are chemically and electrically connected and communicate with each other throughout the body         Parasympathetic activation as a critical component of recovery          How the poor mitochondrial function impacts the neuro-endocrine-immune axis and gastrointestinal tract        His vision for the next steps in medicine, including the need for a readily available blood test that assays the health of mitochondria in blood cells This episode continues to explore the theme laid out in the August 2023 Functional Forum, Mitochondrial Mayem, where we learned how mitochondrial dysfunction leads to a wide range of chronic illnesses—from autoimmunity to cardiometabolic disease, neurologic disorders and more.