Mitochondrial Disorders
Mitochondria are present in every cell of the body except red blood cells. Mitochondria are responsible for creating more than 90% of the energy needed by the body to sustain life and support growth. When they fail, less and less energy is generated within the cell. Cell injury and even cell death follow. If this process is repeated throughout the body, whole systems begin to fail, and the life of the person in whom this is happening is severely compromised.
Diseases of the mitochondria appear to cause the most damage to cells of the brain, heart, liver, skeletal muscles, kidney and the endocrine and respiratory systems.
Depending on which cells are affected, symptoms may include loss of motor control, muscle weakness and pain, gastro-intestinal disorders and swallowing difficulties, poor growth, cardiac disease, liver disease, diabetes, respiratory complications, seizures, visual/hearing problems, lactic acidosis, developmental delays and susceptibility to infection.
More than 1 in 4,000 children born in the United States each year will develop a Mitochondrial Disorder by 10 years of age. Because Mitochondrial Disorders are currently under recognized this figure may underestimate the real number by as much as fourfold.
(UMDF "Could It Be A Mitochondrial Disease?")
"However far modern science & techniques have fallen short of their inherent possibilities,
they have taught mankind at least one lesson: nothing is impossible."
- Lewis Mumford