Mitochondria are seriously challenging my worldview

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First I thought that mitochondria were bacteria that were engulfed by eucaryotic cells in the course of evolution or creation and that they no longer were bacteria.  At that point I loved mitochondria.  Then I found out that, no, they actually were still bacteria, alphaproteobacteria exactly.  At this point my worldview became very challenged.  The past 8 or so years I have been systematically killing off all the bacteria in my gut and elsewhere in the body.  This experience has had far more positive effects than negative, and coupled with germ-free research that shows 50% enhanced lifespans, I was living proof that humans don't need bacteria to survive and thrive.  So when I learned mitochondria were basically intracellular bacteria that instead of being peacefully "taken up" or "given" to our cells as a gift, they might have forcibly gained entry and put our cells into submission like a conquering ruler, I saw an invader that needed to be extinguished.  Also this notion was supported by mitochondrial eve which I thought meant that humans did not have mitochondria before this event, perhaps the eating of infected fruit in the garden of eden.

However somewhere in the middle of these two extremes is most likely.  Mitochondrial eve may just have been a moment where only 1 woman survived.  Mitochondrial eve might not be eve at all but Noah's wife.  If this is true getting infected with mitochondria might not have been the fall of humanity, but a gift given much earlier in our development.  This view is also supported by the fact plants have their own endosymbionts called chloroplasts, which we would be quite hard pressed to say that all plants could survive without them.

So we may just have some primitive pets in our cells.  Pets that can easily get rabies and hurt us very dearly.  Cancer cells have more mitochondria so an overgrowth of them could be very harmful.  We also know that mitochondria can cause insulin resistance by how they respond oxidative to elevated blood sugar (see my previous post on this for a list of references).  Killing off mitochondria periodically might actually be a good strategy to promote a healthier population of the buggers, but trying to go mitochondria free like I went germ free might not be a winning strategy.  I don't like pets but this one looks like a pet I am stuck with.

We will see as we discover more.