Dear neurodivergent woman,
If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you’ve seen the words “cell danger response” more times than you probably wanted to. This is the post I should have written first: what it is, in plain English, and where the science runs out.
The short version
The cell danger response is your cells’ built-in reaction to threat. When a cell decides it’s in danger, it stops putting its energy into everyday life (growing, repairing, doing its job) and puts it into defence. When the danger passes, the cell is meant to switch back and repair.
The idea that matters for us is what happens when that switch-back never fully comes. The cells keep behaving as if the danger is still here.
Where it comes from
The cell danger response comes from Dr Robert Naviaux, a researcher at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. He describes it as an ancient metabolic reaction that protects cells from harm, and he has been developing the theory for more than a decade. In his words, its purpose is to “protect the cell and jump-start the healing process.”
What switches it on
In the research, the triggers are chemical, physical or biological threats that go beyond what a cell can cope with. Think infection, injury or toxins.
Here is my own working theory: for many neurodivergent women the trigger isn’t one big event. It’s a pile-up. Sensory overload, broken sleep, gut trouble, years of masking, a nervous system that never gets the all-clear. Each one is small. Together, they may be enough to keep the alarm ringing.
The three acts
I find it easiest to think of it as a story in three acts.
Act one, the alarm. Cells release signal molecules that act as a danger call to the cells around them. Energy production shifts from everyday work to defence.
Act two, the repair. Once the threat is dealt with, anti-inflammatory and regenerative pathways run in order, reversing the alarm and healing what was damaged.
Act three, stuck. If the alarm doesn’t switch off, the repair never properly starts. Naviaux links this persistent state to disturbed whole-body metabolism, changes in the gut microbiome, and chronic disease.
That third act is the one I think many of us are living in.
What it feels like for me
I can only tell you what it was like for me. Sleeping 12 hours and waking up flat. Limbs like lead. Brain fog, a body that never quite feels safe, and a crash after anything that asked too much of me. When I read about cells stuck in defence mode and not making energy for ordinary life, it was the first explanation that matched.
That is a personal match, not proof. Which brings me to the honest part.
Where the science runs out
The cell danger response is a theory, and parts of it are still hypothesis. Here is what exists:
It has been described in detailed reviews in a respected journal, Mitochondrion, and Naviaux argues it could help explain conditions including autism and ADHD.
A small trial of 10 boys with autism found that a single dose of a drug that blocks one of these danger signals improved communication and social behaviour. The benefit faded as the drug left the body.
Naviaux has a patent application related to this approach, which is worth knowing.
So I use it as a map, not a certainty. It fits what I live and what I see, and it points in a direction that is gentle rather than harsh.
What I do with it
Working with the cell danger response is how I healed myself fully, and it’s how I help my clients. We get very good results.
If the problem is a body stuck in alarm, then forcing it harder can’t be the answer. We can’t shock our cells out of defence mode. We have to show them it’s safe.
For me, that means two things. Fuel: steady blood sugar, so the brain isn’t running on fumes. Nervous system regulation: real signals of safety, so the body can finally put the alarm down.
If you want to go deeper, start with Neurodivergent Burnout and Your Mitochondria: Why Rest Isn’t Fixing It, then read We Must Stop Treating Burnout as a Mindset Issue and Plummeting Estrogen, Starving Mitochondria.
Sources
Naviaux RK. Metabolic features of the cell danger response. Mitochondrion, 2014;16:7-17.
UC San Diego. Chronic diseases driven by metabolic dysfunction. 2018.
