A Family Took Their Newborn to the Doctor

A family took their newborn to the doctor. They were worried something was wrong because the baby seemed to be in constant pain. He had large amounts of lactic acid accumulating in his muscle cells. Doctors figured out that the child had a rare disease in which mitochondria are missing from skeletal muscle cells. Which of the following statements explains what they found?

A) The cells had been going through fermentation to produce energy.
B) The muscles required small amounts of sugar to function.
C) The muscles require extremely high levels of oxygen to function.
D) The muscle cells cannot split glucose into pyruvic acid.
E) The cells had died as a result of no mitochondria.