Mitochondria Basics
Mitochondria are the energy producers of your cells. They are tiny organelles that originated as independent bacteria and were adopted by multicellular organisms billions of years ago, allowing for complex life. They can be modeled as the miniature suns or batteries in your cells that make ATP, which is the molecule that stores energy. You can think of ATP as a currency– when it splits open, it gives you the dollars or units of energy that you need to make your body work. Once ATP is made, it is responsible for making proteins fold and unfold to interact with water in your body, which carries the signal from the light. The better your mitochondria are functioning, the more ATP they make and the more energy you have to heal and carry out your daily functions.
Blausen.com staff (2014). "Medical gallery of Blausen Medical 2014". WikiJournal of Medicine 1 (2). DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.010. ISSN 2002-4436. [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]