Mitochondrial Medicine

Mitochondrial Medicine is a relatively new area where several disciplines from basic science to clinical medicine converge. Mitochondrial medicine deals with diseases that are related to mitochondrial dysfunction due to a number of causes from free radical damage to genetic mutation. A primary feature of mitochondrial dysfunction is impaired cellular bioenergetics.

This book is based upon extensive data gathered over 30 years of clinical and experimental research. Internationally recognized authors share their experience and state-of-the-art knowledge in various fields of their expertise such as mitochondrial cardiology, neurology, diabetology, nephrology, immunology, rheumatology, reproductive medicine, sports medicine, and chronobiology, and guide readers through the disease process, from basic biochemical mechanisms to diagnosis to therapeutic aspects.

Laboratory evaluation plays a very important role in the diagnosis of mitochondrial diseases, in addition to clinical assessment. This includes analysis of plasma/mitochondrial coenzyme Q₁₀ content, mitochondrial respiratory chain function and oxidative phosphorylation in isolated mitochondria and biopsy material, and nuclear magnetic resonance methods.

In addition to standard medical therapy to treat cardiac, CNS, and other involvements in the mitochondrial disease patients, adjunctive nutritional therapy is indicated primarily to improve mitochondrial function. Therapy include coenzyme Q₁₀, a -lipoic acid, carnitine, w -3- and w -6-PUFA, vitamins and polarized light.

Mitochondrial Medicine is dedicated to Dr. Frederick L. Crane, discoverer of Coenzyme Q₁₀ in 1957, and to the Celebration of 50^th year of Coenzyme Q₁₀ discovery.

This book is intended for general medical practitioners, for specialists such as cardiologists, neurologists, and diabetologists, biochemists, nutritionists, pharmacists, and also for graduate students.

From the reviews:

"This comprehensive book deals with various experimental and clinical aspects of the role of mitochondria in physiology and pathophysiology. … editor has done a nice job of assembling a panel of researchers, several of whom are experts, in different aspects of mitochondria biology. … chapters are reasonably well referenced and of appropriate length, and many contain helpful illustrations. The index is complete, which makes the text easy to navigate. This is a very good book that is appropriate for physicians, pharmacologists, and life science experts." (John D. Robertson, Doody’s Review Service, August, 2008)

"The book is dedicated to 4 essential aspects of the problem called in the literature as ‘mitochondrial diseases’ … . Specialists from different countries participated in the monograph preparation … . The book contains 22 chapters. … The book is well documented, contains 122 figures and many tables with new interesting data. This monograph shows that in modern biology there appears a new area of knowledge located in a focus of biomembranology, bioenergetics, and clinical biochemistry. It is called Mitochondrial medicine." (A.A. Boldyrev, Biochemistry (Moscow), Vol. 3 (2), 2009)