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Sorry, @Scarecow, I was having a silly moment. Must be watching too much John Oliver. What I meant to say about sickness behaviour is this: Meaning the concept doesn't have any integrity and is more likely to confuse and obfuscate than to enlighten.

My point was - this isn't really a thing. People thought it was a thing, but it turns out it really isn't a thing. So it don't need no name. Edit: Sometimes giving things a name is the start of a whole big new problem. The thing takes on a life of its own. I'm thinking about depression here...

Just reporting back on @Mij's article. The Maes one. I'm not interested in what they have to say about ME right now. I'm interested in what they say about bodily responses to acute infection - whether there's evidence for a coordinated "sickness behaviour" response. The review of what happens...

That's seriously messed up. Not to mention lazy thinking.

I agree, @Hip. I suppose that is the question of interest here. Does it mean anything to talk about "sickness behaviour"? Would it be better to talk about how inflammation can intefere with energy production and cause fatigue? I think this is better and less open to multiple interpretations...

Interesting you should say that. Yes, the article reads very much like a fusing together of two literatures with out much real thought as to their real relation.

Yes! I'm always suspect of evolutionary accounts of everything, because they tend to cherry pick the phenomena that fit and ignore the others. After reading @Mij's article, I'm favouring the idea that there is no wider social or adaptive purpose for sickness behaviour. Its just that the stuff...

Great find, @Mij. Thanks for posting.

Very interesting. But I wonder whether these results would generalise outside of Europe. I have always had the impression that the homeopathy culture is particularly strong in France and Germany, and I'd expect Switzerland would share some of the same cultural elements. Nonetheless, the article...

I think you were right the first time. The idea isn't that the behaviours are under "voluntary control" in the same way, as say, deciding whether to eat that cookie. But the implication is that the behaviour is mediated by mechanisms in the brain and CNS. Otherwise, why have a word for it at...

That made an incredible amount of sense to me. And my pathway was similar - more detectable abnormalities in my blood as things progressed. I think the idea of ME/CFS as having multiple causes is seriously back on the table.

Yes, the set of behaviours are not at issue. The idea at issue is whether these behaviours are powerfully mediated by the brain, in a way other types of illness-related behaviours are not (e.g., tiredness from anemia). The idea is generally that emotion and the misinterpretation of bodily...

Yes, that's it. The term carries with it the implication that you can intervene to change the behaviour without changing the bodily state that gave rise to it. (it may not be "voluntary" in the normal sense of the word though). Yes, or that these two things only look alike because our...

I started the ball rolling here: https://www.s4me.info/index.php?threads/a-rct-of-the-tumor-necrosis-factor-antagonist-infliximab-for-treatment-resistant-depression.1027/ And there was also some discussion here...

I wonder if some clear groups are starting to form here? autoimmunity EDS/MCAS autoinflammation (at least one case, me) Others are endocrine, mitochondrial (but maybe not exacerbated by exertion?)

Yes, I would like to see some evidence to show that using PEM actually excludes certain individuals from the pool - in a meaningful way. We have always been eager to accuse those meeting only Oxford-style CFS criteria of having some other disease (probably depression). I now think of it the...

No, PEM occurs in some other immune diseases too. So it isn't "exclusive" to ME.

But poor wound healing doesn't mean a poor immune response at the injury site. If that were the case you'd have an infected wound, not one that just took ages to heal. Or am I reading something wrong?

Sickness behaviour is a concept that's often referred to in relation to MECFS. I want to see what people think of it. Whether there's something in it, or whether its just a tool used by the mind-over-body crowd. Here's a rough intro to the concept: Sickness behaviour refers to the behavioural...

Yep, I AM sounding like a broken record, or Yep, you think so too?