I'd say what lies at top of the food chain of cause and effect is simply coming from "availability bias" i.e. we give more weight to what we know to be true. Ye

I'd say what lies at top of the food chain of cause and effect is simply coming from "availability bias" i.e. we give more weight to what we know to be true. Yes some things have more downstream effects than others and that's where you get your bang for the buck. Whether mitochondria is just one mechanism or more of an over-arching one is what research is all about. For example, HRV feels like on obscure metric out of 100s of metrics. But it has been shown to now have hundreds of mental and physical benefits including longevity, that we don't necessarily understand why but it still has risen to the top. Same for intermittent fasting and so on. These are indeed "weird tricks" in a pretty literal sense but they do the job in predictable and often dramatic ways.