Metabolism, Mitochondria, and Mental Health: Dr. Dugar featured on the MindHealth360 Podcast

Published October 2025

Introduction

“What you eat directly goes to the mitochondria and affects the functioning of the fundamental organelle in your body. That’s how fundamental diet is to your health.”

This simple yet profound insight opens up a revolutionary way of thinking about mental health, energy, and healing. In this conversation with Kirkland Newman of MindHealth360, Dr. Sundeep Dugar explores how supporting your cellular powerhouses, your mitochondria, may hold the key to addressing everything from depression and anxiety to PTSD and neurological conditions.

Listen to the podcast

Why Mitochondria Matter for Mental Health

Your mitochondria are extraordinary. They make up almost 25% of your cell volume and operate on the fundamental principles of thermodynamics, they burn the fuel you eat to create energy. Think of it like a fireplace: burn good hardwood, you get a clean fire. Burn soft wood, you get fire but lots of smoke. The quality of what you put in directly affects what you get out.

The brain is particularly vulnerable to mitochondrial dysfunction. When your cellular powerhouses struggle, the effects ripple through every aspect of mental and neurological health. But here’s the encouraging part: mitochondria are dynamic. With the right support, they can regenerate, multiply, and restore function.

A Mission-Driven Approach to Healing

What makes this conversation particularly compelling is the story behind BlueOakNx, the Public Benefit Corporation Dr. Dugar co-founded with mission-driven partners Monica Pal and Sonya Pelia. After decades of success in traditional pharmaceutical development, he made a pivotal choice: to focus on making therapies affordable and accessible for “everyone, everywhere.”

For eight months, the founding team met weekly to envision a different kind of company, one that could bridge cutting-edge science with genuine accessibility. As Dr. Dugar explains, “We’re of course a business, so we have to be profitable. But we run a business as a public benefit corporation… we are in it to do good and also do well for others.”

The Science of Cellular Energy

The conversation dives deep into mitochondrial biology in ways that make complex science accessible. You’ll learn about:

The evolutionary miracle: How 2.5 billion years ago, an endosymbiotic relationship between two cells created the modern eukaryotic cell, and how that partnership gave us the excess energy needed to evolve from single-celled to multicellular organisms
The maternal connection: Your mitochondrial genome comes only from your mother, separate from the combined nuclear genome of both parents
The fuel-burning mechanism: Why what you eat matters at the most fundamental cellular level, and how diet directly impacts mitochondrial function
The stress response: How mitochondria don’t just make ATP—during times of stress, they actually start using ATP, functioning as both ATP synthase and ATPase

A Unique Molecular Discovery

Dr. Dugar shares insights into a molecule his team has been researching, one that works differently from other mitochondrial supplements. While compounds like CoQ10 help create membrane potential, his team’s approach focuses on protecting a critical component: electron transport chain complex V (ATP synthase).

“If your ATP synthase is not functioning, nothing else has meaning,” he explains. During cellular stress, if complex V becomes dysfunctional, mitochondria can’t maintain their membrane potential—they balloon, create transition pores, and die. The molecule his team developed works by preventing this breakdown while simultaneously promoting mitochondrial biogenesis, clearing cellular debris, reducing oxidative stress, and supporting mitophagy (the cellular cleanup of damaged mitochondria).

Real-World Applications

The conversation explores practical applications across various conditions. In clinical studies with Becker’s muscular dystrophy patients, the team has measured improvements in cardiac function, muscle function, biomarkers of muscle regeneration, oxidative stress, inflammatory markers, and heart failure indicators.

For mental health specifically, Dr. Dugar discusses how this approach might work with conditions like clinical anxiety and PTSD, identifying specific biomarkers for different patient groups and correlating them with clinical responses. The timeline is realistic: most people see effects between 3 to 6 months, with gradual improvement that’s often more noticeable to clinicians using objective markers than to patients themselves.

Your Guide: Kirkland Newman and MindHealth360

Kirkland Newman brings warmth and curiosity to this complex subject, asking the questions listeners want answered. As founder and editor of MindHealth360, Newman has built a platform dedicated to exploring root causes of mental health symptoms and practical solutions for healing. Her interviewing style creates space for both scientific depth and accessibility, making cutting-edge research understandable for everyone seeking better mental health.

About Dr. Sundeep Dugar

Dr. Sundeep Dugar brings over 35 years of pharmaceutical drug discovery experience in small molecule development across inflammation, central nervous system disorders, oncology, cardiovascular, and metabolic conditions. He is co-founder of BlueOakNx and co-inventor of two successful pharmaceutical drugs and holds over 100 issued and applied patents, with more than 70 publications and presentations to his credit. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Davis.

His research team recently achieved semifinalist status in the $101 Million XPRIZE Healthspan competition, competing against 600 teams from 60 countries. As co-founder of BlueOakNx, he’s dedicated to advancing mitochondrial science while ensuring accessibility for all.

Enjoy the Mitochondrial Health, Healthspan & Aging Summit presentation by Dr Elissa Epel, Vice Chair Psychiatry UCSF.

Note: This podcast focuses on Dr. Dugar’s research and the science of mitochondrial health. For additional presentations covering related topics, including his groundbreaking discovery of a new mitochondrial human steroid hormone and insights from the IMMH 2025 conference, visit the BlueOakNx YouTube channel for upcoming content.