Dr. Mark Gordon on quercetin: what the evidence says · JRE #2262
SUBJECT: QUERCETIN
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
So what quercetin does is it increases mitochondrial replication in about seven days, doubles the amount of mitochondria intracellularly.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
The doubling and seven-day figures trace to a single 2009 mouse study (Davis et al.), which fed mice quercetin for 7 days and reported increased mitochondrial DNA and PGC-1alpha in muscle and brain, with the full text noting mtDNA roughly doubled at the higher 25 mg/kg dose. Two important qualifications are dropped in the quote: the measurement was mitochondrial DNA content, a biogenesis marker, not a direct count of mitochondria, and it was in mice, not people. A later rat study found quercetin did not stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle at all, and it notes that human studies either did not replicate this exercise-like effect or found only a weak one. Presenting a rodent-only, marker-based doubling as an established effect on human intracellular mitochondria overstates the evidence.