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.
If they are defective, it can starve the body of energy, leading to muscle weakness, blindness, deafness, epilepsy, heart failure, early dementia and even death. Some form of mitochondrial disease affects about one in 200 children born each year-or a few dozen babies in Britain.