An Overview of Mitochondria

What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Fibromyalgia Fatigue: The Powerful Program That Helps You Boost Your Energy and Reclaim Your Life
by R. Paul St. Amand, M.D., Claudia Craig Marek, M.A.

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An Overview of Mitochondria, Your Biologic Power Stations (The Technical Stuff)

I have been hiding my chronic fatigue since I was seven. I was at that time diagnosed with “mono” and got better just as quickly and profoundly as I got sick, only to have it occur again and again until after the “mono” was long gone. My family quickly concluded that I was a malingerer that got sick when convenient to avoid family responsibilities. I quickly learned to tough it out and make hay while the sun shines because tomorrow I may need to spend the day in bed.
-Roseanna, California

Most structures inside cells were barely visible to early scientists, who only had primitive microscopes that provided very limited magnification. Additionally, the searching eyes peering down the tube had no idea what to expect. No precedent existed for something that had never before been seen. The barely distinguishable mitochondria appeared like a bunch of threads interlaced with granular bumps. Accordingly, the early microanatomists coined a new word using Greek derivations to describe these tiny bodies. Mito means “thread” and chondro, “granules” or “cartilage.” The name stuck, but now we know it poorly describes the actual purpose and complex functions of these little organelles.

Mitochondrion is the singular form, which is rarely used. The reason for this is simply that there are so many in each cell. One muscle fiber may have anywhere from a few hundred to one thousand mitochondria. One unfertilized egg may contain up to five hundred thousand. That such numbers exist within single cells reveals their importance. Mitochondria are also widely varied: They come in different shapes and sizes and vary greatly from their cohorts. Some snuggle up close to different enclosures strewn about the cell, such as the nucleus and the endoplasmic reticulum where proteins are manufactured.

Others freely link up with fellow mitochondria and mutually digest information in some currently incomprehensible, biochemical language.

Today, scientists are finally able to peer into the depths of mitochondria. With new technology, they're no longer reduced to studying stained slides looking only at bits of totally dead and nonfunctional tissue. Researchers are no longer content with simply viewing structures and their anatomy. Newer techniques actually allow amplified spying into the chemical machinery while it's in action and very much alive. From these displays, even more startling findings keep emerging. We hope not to lose some of the marvelous intricacies by our simplifications, but at the same time we'll try to make a complexity more comprehensible.

Fatigue was my middle name, and my friends after years of joking and ribbing me about falling asleep with twenty people in my living room and at every movie or theater event learned not to call me after 8:30 P.M. I have been on the protocol for about fifteen months and experience only intermittent fatigue. I still have a long way to go to get rid of the headaches, lower back pain, neck, shoulder pain, et cetera, but the progress is very freeing and gives me great hope for a completely normal life.
-M. Bailey, Fresno, California

Mitochondria are really like franchised production kitchens that stir up the biologically tasteful, chemical soups necessary to meet all cellular nourishment needs. The broth originates with a roux of disintegrated food residues, mainly from carbohydrates and fats. These ingredients are further flavored with various minerals and spiced with the by-products of the chemical whirl itself. Enzymes heat and push the process to speed mixing and, in a few thousandths of a second, the concoction is ready. It is energy, and it's the same recipe imbibed throughout evolution by both plants and animals.

The whole process is carried out at electrifying speed. When there's a sudden need for action, invisible sparks actually fly rapidly around other cells. Try sprinting down the street and you'll sense the surge of energy you're expending.

This spurt requires several physiologic procedures that must occur in an amazingly precise and prescribed order. Hundreds of chemical sequences are involved, each demanding cooperation from a matching enzyme. Awesome as it is to ponder this entire process, detailed chemical description is unnecessary in this text. For now, let's just look at the larger picture.

Mitochondria have two compartments, an inner and an outer chamber. Each has its own encircling membrane designed to keep out intruders. The outer wall interfaces with the rest of the cell and all its fluid contents. This membrane is relatively porous and lets in all kinds of compounds and chemical messages. Streams of various molecules and chemicals from all parts of the parent cell are allowed access. As you would guess, however, because of this lax security it's possible for undesirable and uninvited compounds to sneak in and snarl energy-generating mechanisms.

The inner wall is far more discriminating and protects the inner chamber, known as the matrix. This second room inside mitochondria is guarded by a formidable, electrified double wall that's similar to a security system, designed to protect the innermost chemical brain of the working cell. This core contains very delicate machinery that must be kept under constant surveillance and made safe from intrusive tampering. Within the bastions of this inner chamber, several chemical steps are required to produce ATP, the currency of energy. If your body is functioning at a normal level, the powerful hydrogen ions that fuel the cells are very mobile. However, if excess cell baggage is present, energy formation ceases. A few paragraphs back, we mentioned that security in the little outside hall is glaringly lacking. If released into this outer chamber, hydrogen would readily escape and overacidify every part of the cell. Since this would result in its death, misdirection is prevented by a powerful security system comprised of special proteins.

These protectors promptly reattach hydrogen to the same double wall through which they just exited the matrix. Each ion sneaks back into the tiny space wedged between the two layers of the inner wall. In this space, the ion now encounters an entirely new set of enzymes that strip it naked-freeing up its one and only electron. Electrons are the same charged particles that flow through the world's electrical circuits. Similarly, they flow through all cells, not only disseminating information but also empowering the energy makers.

This combination of the proper ingredients comes together to generate ATP, and going clockwise or counterclock-wise produces different results. In one direction, the hydrogen that was denuded of its electron sprints through the double wall directly back into the inner chamber, where it will eventually attract a new electron to become a whole hydrogen ion again. The energy of that same rotation gives simultaneous birth to one tiny morsel of ATP. Spin the rotor in the other direction and that same ATP is exported out to serve all the cell's energy requirements. Many pounds of ATP are made daily, because a huge amount of energy is needed everywhere, day or night.

As fast as reborn ATP implodes into the matrix, it usually waits only a few milliseconds before a reverse rotation explosively extrudes it right back out. It will be spent in widely distributed areas of the cell. Every function in the deepest recesses of your body depends on these exports. Nothing else can be used as a substitute.

About the Author

R. PAUL ST. AMAND, M.D., is a graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine. He has been on the teaching staff at the Los Angeles Harbor/UCLA Hospital, Department of Endocrinology for over forty-three years. He is currently an assistant clinical professor at the UCLA School of Medicine. Dr. St. Amand discovered guaifenesins use as a treatment for fibromyalgia, and his work is cited wherever the substance is mentioned.

CLAUDIA CRAIG MAREK, M.A., is a medical researcher tutored, trained, and taught on the job as Dr. St. Amand's assistant. She has co-written medical papers with Dr. St. Amand and has counseled fibromyalgia patients on the use of guaifenesin for the past seven years. She, too, is a former fibromyalgia patient, and is a leading patient advocate.