Mitochondrial Disease Foundation Meeting

I wanted to let all of our patients, followers, and friends know that I had the opportunity to go to Nashville the 1st week of July 2018 to the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation Meeting.  I presented a nice poster at that meeting entitled, “Antibiotic Over Usage Causing Modern Plagues: Mitochondrial Dysfunction Promoting Neurodegeneration and Tumorigenesis.”

Dr. Elliott’s poster presentation at UMDF 2018

My co-research participants were Mr. Jiang, Director of Research at our Foundation and Dr. Catherine Baucom my surgical oncologist associate.

This poster emphasized the misuse of antibiotics and how they are causing problems in patients and in people because our mitochondria are siblings of bacteria and they share some of the same protein machinery that manufacture proteins that bacteria do.

Mitochondria are siblings of bacteria

So, if antibiotics can help us with bad germs and some of the bacteria that causes severe infections, they can also cause Mitochondrial dysfunction in the rest of our cells.

These slides show antibiotics cause significant, sometimes detrimental changes in cells in culture

Our research suggests that the dysfunction that antibiotics cause to our mitochondria can be minimized by taking a strong antioxidant such as N-acetylcysteine (NAC).

Overview of how antibiotics damage mitochondria.

In summary, our research suggests that antibiotics can kill normal human cells by hurting the mitochondria. We are currently working on trying to find a potential solution so that we can maybe prevent the ongoing damage to our mitochondria.

Look for more to come.

Thank you and God Bless.

Robert L. Elliott, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc.

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