HOUSTONâJustin Friendâs parents have doctoral degrees and have worked as university lecturers and researchers. So Mr. Friend might have been expected to head for a university after graduating from high school in Bryan, Texas, five years ago. Instead, he attended Texas State Technical College in Waco, and received a two-year degree in welding.
A flurry of emergent research has linked mitochondrial dysfunction to the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease. Mitochondrial dysfunction results in impaired ATP generation, loss of cellular repair mechanisms, and cellular inefficiency.
1 Mitochondrial dysfunction has been definitively linked to virtually all killer diseases of aging, from Alzheimerâs disease and type 2 diabetes to heart failure.  Researchers have recorded evidence of greater mitochondrial damage in the brain cells of humans over 70 compared to those in their early 40s.