"A human being is a whole world to a mitochondrion, just the way our planet is to us. But we're much more dependent on our mitochondria than the earth is on us. The earth could get along perfectly well without people, but if anything happened to our mitochondria, we'd die." So explains Charles Wallace to his sister Meg in Madeleine L'Engle's wonderful
A Wind in the Door. The tiny organelles play the lead role in Duke University neurology professor Allen Roses' theory about Alzheimer's, too. The generally accepted theory posits that the protein beta-amyloid is the primary culprit, but Roses believes that the presence of beta-amyloid is a side effect, not a cause. His theory, which is gaining adherents, is that variations in two genes keep mitochondria from providing energy to neurons, causing them to die:
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-30/do-we-all-have-alzhemers-completely-wrong-man-says-yes
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