John Arts Abundant Living www.johnarts.co.nz

Today we look at health problems caused or defined by extreme fatigue.

The most obvious is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) but it is associated with most autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases. In these conditions the fatigue can seriously reduce quality of life. I know this too well, having suffered with CFS from late 20s to my early 40s.

In many cases the underlying disease state causing the fatigue is incurable but there is still much we can do through targeted nutritional therapy to improve energy levels. Most of our energy, as ATP (adenosine triphosphate), is produced within our cell energy factories - our amazing mitochondria. These highly specialised cell organelles take high energy food compounds from carbohydrates, fats and proteins then break these down to produce the ATP we need. A common feature of many of these problems is the inability of our cell mitochondria to sufficient energy.

There has been a great deal of research into mitochondrial dysfunction and extreme fatigue states. One study, 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Mitochondrial Dysfunction” was conducted at Oxford University (S. Myhill, N. Booth and J. McLaren-Howard, 2009). They compared the ATP output of 71 people with CFS and compared them to 53 normal people. They concluded that a 'remarkable correlation is observed between the degree of mitochondrial dysfunction and the severity of the disease”. Other researchers such as Martin Pall have identified the mitochondrial processes affected by CFS, fibromyalgia and other problems.

My first goal with people with CFS and other mitochondrial problems is to saturate tissues with the most potent antioxidants to mop up the free radicals and to help re-build critical antioxidant enzyme systems. We then target the actual mitochondrial problem by adding cocktail of nutrients and co-factors. These can be anything from B vitamins, to CoQ10, to exotic sounding compounds such as R-Alpha Lipoic Acid and Acetyl L Carnitine. These all work to help stressed cells manufacture energy more efficiently. Interestingly, when working with people with polymyalgia, Parkinson's and MS the first improvement most notice is an improvement in energy. If we can re-build our energy processes we can go a long way to helping people improve their quality of life. Over time this increases the chance of improving the underlying problem. Give me a call if you need help. To join my weekly newsletter go to www.johnarts.co.nz and visit www.abundant.co.nz

John Arts is the founder of Abundant Health. To contact John phone (local) 578 9051 or 0800 423 559.