Cell Membrane Repair: Insight From Rita Ellithorpe, MD


Focus: You are in many ways the ultimate GP. Can you tell us a little bit about your practice?


RE: In the course of the entire thirty plus years I’ve been an active physician, I’ve remained in family practice. First having done nine years in the Army Medical Corps, military medi- cine and flight surgery. I ran emergency rooms and aviation clinics and set out to remain a gen- eral practitioner see- ing all diseases from delivering children to taking care of the elderly. All along I’ve seen an array of patients, for both preventive and acute care, and all disease processes, from autoimmune to cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, endocrine, and chronic infectious disease.


Focus: One of your particu- lar passions, across your very diverse patient population, is treating fatigue. Why is that?


RE: Because in all diseases


and in all patients, in fact in all biological life, fatigue is the first expression of cell damage, no matter what the cause. It is directly due to cell membrane malfunction and injury. The signaling is failing.


When cell membranes are intact their receptor surface is able to perform all necessary


I prescribe glycophospholipids to 100% of my patients, and the fact that I use it so consistently shows I have consistent results. Patients say their energy is markedly improved.


functions. Communication between cells, and even within the cell components, flows easily. Once the membrane is damaged this communication is disrupted, and the cell cannot function properly.


The key to a properly function- ing cell membrane is the lipid. Cell membranes are composed of a bi-lipid layer. This bi-lipid layer is made up primarily of


Dr. Rita Ellithorpe, MD, is founder and medical director of Tustin Longevity Center in Tustin, California. She is a board member of ACAM and author of Detox Outside The Box with coauthors Robert Settineri, M.S. & Deborah Barwick. She was an emergency room staff physician at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and a


4 Focus August 2012


phospholipids and a glucose molecule. Glycophospholipids compose the membrane of ev- ery cell in our body from our head to our toes and need con- stant daily repair. We obtain lipids in our diet from meat, egg yolks, fish, turkey, chicken, beef. A no-fat and low-fat diet is actually damaging, because it doesn’t provide the necessary fatty acids for healthy cell mem- branes. Glycophos- pholipids have to be available abundantly, daily, to just survive damage from oxida- tive processes, the en-


vironment, and even our own emotions (anger, for instance, produces stress hormones and increased epinephrine and will generate free radicals).


The importance of lipids and the cell membrane should be taught in all medical schools, to all physicians, for all pre- ventive medicine programs be- cause cell membrane function is


general medical officer and flight surgeon as Chief of the Aviation Clinic from 1983-1990. Her research has appeared in the journal Medical Oncology. Dr. Ellithorpe holds a second doctorate in integrative medicine focusing on health at a cellular level.


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