I found an amazing article which supports most of what I've read on this board including your advice, Mrs.D, and could explain my skin temperature problems:

CFS - The Central Cause: Mitochondrial Failure

. . .

"The job of the heart is to maintain blood pressure. If the blood pressure falls, organs start to fail. If the heart is working inadequately as a pump then the only way blood pressure can be sustained is by shutting down blood supply to organs. Organs are shut down in terms of priority, i.e. the skin first. . . this creates further problems for the body in terms of toxic overload. . .

Effects on the Skin

"If you shut down the blood supply to the skin, this has two main effects. The first is that the skin is responsible for controlling the temperature of the body. This means that CFS patients become intolerant of heat.

"If the body gets too hot then it cannot lose heat through the skin (because it has no blood supply) and the core temperature increases.

"The only way the body can compensate for this is by switching off the thyroid gland (which is responsible for the level of metabolic activity in the body and hence heat generation) and so one gets a compensatory underactive thyroid. This alone worsens the problems of fatigue.

"The second problem is that if the micro-circulation in the skin is shut down, then the body cannot sweat. This is a major way through which toxins, particularly heavy metals, pesticides and volatile organic compounds are excreted. Therefore the CFS sufferer's body is much better at accumulating toxins, which of course further damage mitochondria."

http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/CFS_-...ndrial_Failure

That explains why I and other people with PN don't sweat properly. It may also hint at a possible cause of PN - the skin is the first target/most vulnerable to mito failure.

The entire article is well-written and it helped me a lot.

I hope I'm on the right track... I didn't want to assume hypothyroidism is my problem until my mitochondria has been tested. This is the second (or third) doctor I've found who says your thyroid could be alright, just partly inactive due to mito issues.

I do think it is worth while to test mitochondria in patients with chronic low metabolic symptoms.

I am not sure about all the statements you are quoting, however.
Some forms of PN affect the autonomic nervous system itself and therefore sweating would be affected.

Let us know what the results are, in any event.
And your research is very helpful here...please do keep that coming. In medical systems, often factoids are scattered about and may not be understood properly. " The B12 on an empty stomach" is an example. Research with drugs in microgram amounts/doses showed poor or no absorption when food was present in the GI tract.(thyroid hormone and digoxin) This is a huge issue with the microgram amounts of B12 we need to absorb orally. But this evidence so far is not connected to B12 information (except for me) it appears!

I wonder how many other supplements only work following the same protocol ? esp without someone in the know ( like you ) to spot them

m

The thing I don't get is why so many doctors and socalled experts focus on the thyroid, adrenal glands, etc., and get all caught up in that, but don't take it back a step to the mitochondria. They assume a specific part of the endocrine system is dysfunctional.

I'm looking up mitochondria in my chronic fatigue books and references are few and far between.

I also don't get why Dr. Teitelbaum, one of the experts on chronic fatigue, who seems to get the importance of mitochondria, wants people to get on thyroid meds, and then wean them off the meds once their mitochondria are working right.

I think Dr. Sarah Myhill is a genius.

I'm starting some testing on possible synergy between Mg and CoQ10 absorbed at the same time. A significant amount of Mg with CoQ10 seems to make the CoQ10 much more effective. Both of course play major roles with ATP. The tests are transdermal Mg (4-6 tblsz:30 mins)+ oral CoQ10 (100mg).

I've been having difficulty finding local testing for ATP/mitochondria.

Dr. Myhill does ATP profiles:

"The first part of the test is called "ATP profiles" and has been developed by Dr John McLaren-Howard at Biolab in London. It measures the rate at which ATP is recycled in cells and because production of ATP is highly dependent on magnesium status so the first part of the test studies this aspect. The second part of the test measures the efficiency with which ATP is made from ADP. If this is abnormal, then this could be as a result of magnesium deficiency, and/or low levels of Co-enzyme Q10, and/or low levels of vitamin B3 (NAD) and/or low levels of acetyl L-carnitine. The third possibility is that the protein which transports ATP and ADP across mitochondrial membrane is impaired and this is also measured."

I'd love to know if my mito membranes are shot. One of the reasons I'm keen on taurine is its membrane powers. Taurine is a powerful cell membrane stabilizer.

Choline and DHA (essential fatty acid) are also membrane stabilizers.

The mitochondria have always been mysterious. That is changing now I believe with improved techniques in biochemistry. But there are very few doctors who even treat mito disorders (which are mostly genetic at this time). The vaguer concepts of acquired mito damage is still very new in medicine.

Dr. Bruce Ames, PhD. has spent his life on the biochemistry of the body and has long believed that mitochondria hold the answer to aging and many ills.

His Juvenon site has some of that information:
http://juvenon.com/juvenoncapshome.h...FQQCQAod2AJynw

I think I wrote in a previous post that up to 30% of the cell's energy is used for the Mg-Ca pump. Dr. Myhill says it's higher:

If Ca is indeed "toxic to mitochondria," I wonder how many people who've bought into the Calcium hype are suffering mito problems because of it.

Myhill is the first doctor I've come across who advocates Mg injections when it's not a cardiac emergency. But she explains the reason well. She's been helping CFS patients for 20 years and seen over 4,500 of them. She even advocates self-injections of Mg, which is interesting.

I decided to look this up...

Here is one article so far:

This link goes into detail about calcium in the mitochondria:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion
It is really complicated!

This article explains what happens in cold exposed rats, who are magnesium deficient... We don't know if it applies to humans though from this paper alone:
http://www.mgwater.com/dur08.shtml

This link is also a very good overview about magnesium:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_in_biology

This is turning into a great discussion!

I'll 2nd that! It's been a great education!

I was reading part of The Magnesium Miracle yesterday to see what Dr. Dean has to say about mitochondria, and spotted a section on statins relevant to this thread:

MAGNESIUM ACTS LIKE A NATURAL STATIN

"Magnesium acts by the same mechanisms as statin drugs to lower cholesterol.

. . .

"Magnesium is necessary for the activity of an enzyme that lowers LDL, the "bad" cholesterol; it also lowers triglycerides and raises the "good" cholesterol, HDL."

Page 90

Trust the medical elite to come up with a damaging way to control something that nature can do without damage!

I was wondering how drug companies can fail to provide adequate warnings. Sure enough, the company making Lipitor has been sued:

"Among the new plaintiffs is a professional airline pilot from Virginia, who claims that permanent muscle and nerve damage he suffered from Lipitor have made it impossible for him to continue flying — ironically, he began taking the drug to maintain satisfactory cholesterol levels to pass his employment physical...

"Also filing suit is . . . a resident of Port Jervis, NY. . . since starting Lipitor in 1999, she has suffered a series of irreversible health problems that she and her family assert were caused by Pfizer’s drug Lipitor. Among the damages she alleges were triggered by Lipitor are peripheral nervous system damage (peripheral neuropathy). . .

I've never seen that comment before. Is there a footnote to
the paper he got that from? I'd like to confirm his statement, and then put it up on my magnesium thread.

Oh, I see it here:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=aqMP...statin&f=false

I have not had experience with my magnesium lowering my cholesterol. However it does help my HDLs and triglycerides, but not the LDLs at all.

I know I'd probably be dead without my magnesium! It lowers my blood pressure really well.