Skip to content
Home » Minding Your Mitochondria by Dr. Terry Wahls (Full Transcript)

Minding Your Mitochondria by Dr. Terry Wahls (Full Transcript)

Dr Terry Wahls at TEDxIowaCity

Dr. Terry Wahls speaks on Minding Your Mitochondria at TEDxIowaCity conference

Listen to the MP3 Audio here: MP3 – Minding Your Mitochondria by Dr. Terry Wahls at TEDxIowaCity

TRANSCRIPT: 

So, I love doing Taekwondo and was once a national champion. But a lot has changed since then. I went off to medical school, became a physician. I had a son, and then a daughter. And I developed a chronic disease for which there is no cure.

In 2000 when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, I turned to the best MS center I could find, the Cleveland Clinic. I saw the very best doctors, received the best care possible, taking the latest newest drugs.

Still by 2003, my disease had transitioned to secondary progressive MS. I took the recommended chemotherapy. I got the tilt-recline wheelchair. I had one with a motor I could drive around.

I took TYSABRI. And then CellCept but continued to become more severely disabled. My disease had transitioned. I was afraid that I was going to become bedridden.

I turned to reading the latest research using podmed.gov. I knew that brains afflicted with MS, over time shrank. I therefore went to, every night, reading the latest medical research about the diseases in which brains shrank. These diseases were Huntington’s, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

I saw that in all three conditions, the mitochondria do not work well, leading to shrinking brains. With more searching, I found studies in which mouse brains and their mitochondria had been protected. Using fish oil, creatine and co-enzyme Q.

I translated those mouse sized doses into human sized ones and began my first round of self experimentation. The rapidity of my decline slowed and I was very grateful. But I was still declining.

Next, I discovered the Institute for Functional Medicine.