There would be no complex life without mitochondria, nor can there be any comprehensive medicine without mitochondria. Mitochondria are fundamental to all life and they are foundational across physiology which is why a strategic process is necessary to integrate mitochondria into medicine, health and treatment and to break traditional impasses.

Mitochondria are highly specialized by cell, tissue and organ type. While they have similar roles in different parts of the body, firing neurons require different configurations and numbers of mitochondria per cell than a pancreatic cell. What is clear from the image above is that there are two elementary components in cells with DNA are nucleus and the vast mitochondria networks (with their voluminous mtDNA) which in each cell are continuing dividing and recombining.

It is apparent that current approaches to address diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, neuropsychiatric disorders, diabetes and obesity, cardiovascular disease, renal failure, cancer, and longevity are insufficient, likely due to an incomplete understanding of the comprehensive biology including mitochondria and their DNA. While mitochondrial mutation and epigenetics is increasingly linked to such diseases, the mechanism of initial dysfunction, later fuller expression and the longer term consequences are not well understood.