Ask the doctor.

I've been diagnosed with fibromyaldia. What can I do to treat myself? There's little available from conventional medicine for my condition. --D.V., Atlanta

I think that most research in fibromyalgia is going in the wrong direction by following fire serotonin pathway instead of concentrating on the levels of mitochondria in the muscles. Mitochondria are the power plants of our cells. They use glucose to make adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which muscles use as energy. In patients who suffer from fibromyalgia, there's a lack of mitochondria in the muscles in the areas where they feel pain. Without the mitochondria, the muscles get their energy from a different source called the lactic acid pathway. This involves utilizing muscle tissue itself to produce energy, and it results in quantities of lactic acid building up in the muscles, which causes pain.

Imagine running a marathon with no training. Think about what your legs would feel like file next day--sore and stiff because your muscles would be filled with lactic acid. This is what the fibromyalgia patient feels every day.

So to treat fibromyalgia, you have to increase the levels of mitochondria in the muscles. One way to do this is to exercise, which makes the body add mitochondria to the muscles. The problem is that fibromyalgia patients are usually fatigued, making exercise difficult. Nonetheless, patients should exercise within their tolerable limits.

Ribose, a component of ATP, figures prominently in several important metabolic processes in ...