If mitochondrial dysfunction affects PwME, could safely stimulating mitophagy/mitogenesis help?

I'll preface my question by saying that I don't really know what I'm talking about when it comes to bioscience, so what I say below may be drivel and may be misrepresenting what these scientists are saying, and that I only listened to/read this stuff with half a brain and a dodgy memory, but...

I've just been listening to Prof. Scheibenbogen's talk on ME/CFS in post-Covid patients, in which she said (I think) that she observed problems with mitochondria and with auto-antibody-producing B-cells.

I've also just been reading Dr Valter Longo's book (The Longevity Diet) on dietary interventions to promote longevity. He includes discussion of a five-day 'fasting mimicking diet' that provokes the body to break down (I think) both malfunctioning cells and mitochondria and replace them with healthy new ones. He's done an RCT of the diet with some success in patients with MS (an autoimmune condition, obviously).

I think there are other, less drastic ways to get the body to cannibalise cells, at least (e.g. taking diluted acetic acid (or diluted vinegar, which contains it), or prebiotics such as FOS that your gut microbes can use to produce it) but I'm not sure about mitochondria.

So! Are malfunctioning mitochondria and/or auto-immune cells likely to be useful targets for PwME, and have their been trials of this approach?

And what safe, non-drug interventions other than fasting might lead to the body getting rid of dodgy mitochondria and replacing them with healthy new ones?

(BTW, lots of warnings in the literature not to drink neat vinegar - you can burn your oesophagus.)

 

It doesn't really make much sense to me I am afraid. I think one would need to specify which cells were staying and which going. New cells come from old cells dividing. If the old cells were in trouble not sure why new cells would be better? Lots of cells you wouldn't want to get rid of and the ones that turn over turn over fairly regularly anyway.

 

Can the body not identify which cells are damaged and get rid of them first? From what I'd read, I thought it could (but as I've already said, I don't know what I'm talking about).

 

It would normally but presumably if it hasn't already then there is some reason for not being able to. I don't think one can really make sense of this sort of line of thought without referring to particular cell types though. We have no idea whether any cells have mitochondrial problems let alone which types.