RheanaCarter.com :: Mitochondrial Information

Mitochondrial Disease Information and Useful Resources

To know more is to understand. To understand is to care.

The mitochondria are small organelles found in the cells of the body that function as powerhouses for the cells. They take oxygen and nutrients and convert them to usable energy. Malfunctions within the mitochondria lead to a loss of the cells ability to grow and function. Organs such as the brain, muscles, heart, kidneys, and eyes, which require a lot of energy, will often be the most affected by mitochondrial disorders. Although the abnormal mitochondria occur throughout the body, the ratio of abnormal to normal mitochondria may vary within different organs. Only when the percentage of abnormal mitochondria crosses a certain threshold will the disease express itself in that organ. This leads to the varied presentations among those affected. For instance, someone with a high number of abnormal mitochondria in the optic nerve may have blindness (Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy), in the brain may have seizures (Mitochondrial Encephalomyopathy), or in the heart may have heart disease (Cardiomyopathy).

The following information is from the UMDF Website:

Imagine a major city with half its power plants shut down. At best, such conditions would produce a "brown out" with large sections of the city working far below optimum efficiency.

Now imagine your body with one-half of its energy producing facilities shut down. The brain would be impaired, vision would be dim, muscles would twitch spastically or would be too weak to allow your body to walk or write, your heart would be weakened, and you would not be able to eat and digest your food.

For large numbers of people, especially children, this is precisely the situation in which they find themselves due to defects in the mitochondria, organelles found in every cell of the body which are responsible for the body's energy production. Mitochondrial diseases compromise their lives and can be fatal ...

► Mito Families living in Georgia please be sure to check through all of the resources available at the Parent to Parent of Georgia website! They provide support and information to parents of children with disabilities, as well as an extensive Special Needs Database of information.

Parent to Parent provides support and information to parents of children with disabilities. One of the most meaningful sources of support are other parents who have experienced parenting a child with a disability.

Learn more about Mitochondrial Diseases and other useful information at these pages

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Healia search engine -Healia is the premier consumer health search engine for finding high quality and personalized health information on the Web. It serves as an independent, unbiased gateway to the highest quality health information resources.
Medications, Supplements, and Herbal Information - Medication information that you can browse by generic or brand name. Prescription and over-the-counter medication information is provided by MedMaster™.
Mitochondrial Disease Action Committee
HealthLine Search Engine - HealthLine is a specialized medical search engine that offers high-quality, authoritative information that's easy to find, even if you don't speak medicalese.
NCBI's PubMed (enter the search term "mitochondrial") - Established in 1988 as a national resource for molecular biology information, NCBI creates public databases, conducts research in computational biology, develops software tools for analyzing genome data, and disseminates biomedical information - all for the better understanding of molecular processes affecting human health and disease.
Critical Care Review - Mitochondrial Disease (this is PDF fomat) A Pulmonary and Critical-Care Medicine Perspective written by the The American College of Chest Physicians.
Galactosemia Resources and Information website - A repository for information about galactosemia and a jumping-off point to other places on the web.
National Organization for Rare Disorders - The National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD), a 501(c)3 organization, is a unique federation of voluntary health organizations dedicated to helping people with rare "orphan" diseases and assisting the organizations that serve them. NORD is committed to the identification, treatment, and cure of rare disorders through programs of education, advocacy, research, and service.
OMIM - Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (enter the search term "mitochondrial disease") - This database is a catalog of human genes and genetic disorders authored and edited by Dr. Victor A. McKusick and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere, and developed for the World Wide Web by NCBI, the National Center for Biotechnology Information. The database contains textual information and references. It also contains copious links to MEDLINE and sequence records in the Entrez system, and links to additional related resources at NCBI and elsewhere.
US National Library of Medicine (NLM) (enter the search term "mitochondrial disease") - The worlds largest medical library is brought to you online by way of the Freedom of Information Act.
National Library of Medicine Gateway (enter the search term "mitochondrial disease") - Searches all of the NLM resources at once.
The Mitochondrial Medicine Society - The MMS is a non-profit professional educational organization whose purpose is to promote the worldwide advancement and development of research in mitochondrial medicine, including biochemistry, genetics, disease diagnosis and treatment.
University of California, San Diego School of Medicine - The UCSD School of Medicine is one of the nation's top-ranked academic institutions devoted to medical research, education, and health care services.
Society for Inherited Metabolic Disorders - The SIMD is a non-profit professional organization whose purpose is to promote the worldwide advancement of research and medical treatment of inherited disorders of metabolism.
NYU Medical Center Online - NYU School of Medicine. The mission of NYU Health System is the relief of human suffering caused by disease and disability through education, research and patient care.
Health on the Net Foundation - The MedHunt search engine is a leading healthcare information portal on the Internet. Health On the Net is a not-for-profit, global public service and relies on sponsorship from the public and private sectors. Launched in 1996, HON is based in Geneva, Switzerland.
AllRefer.com Health Search Engine - A medical and health information resource containing outstanding database of health articles and reference materials. Consumers and health professionals alike can depend on it for information that is authoritative and up-to-date.

AllRefer Health has extensive information from trusted sources on over 4,000 topics including diseases, tests, symptoms, injuries, surgeries, nutrition, poisons, and special topics. There is also focus on family and community health. AllRefer Health is updated daily at the URL: http://health.allrefer.com/.
The Disability Law and Policy Center of Georgia - The Disability Law and Policy Center of Georgia, Inc. is a non-profit statewide organization that works to develop and use legal, policy and educational tools, and resources to facilitate community living, community integration, and independence for Georgians with disabilities.

The Disability Law and Policy Center of Georgia, Inc. provides the Georgia Disability Laws Handbook. This handbook discusses both Georgia and federal laws that protect the rights of individuals with disabilities. Georgia and federal law should both be examined to get a full picture of the law on a particular topic. In some areas, Georgia laws provide more legal protection; in other areas, federal law is more comprehensive.

mitochondrial info