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Genome-wide association study identifies eight risk loci and implicates metabo-psychiatric origins for anorexia nervosa This is a good example of the potential of genome-wide association studies to transform the understanding of an illness — especially one without good treatments. From the...

Great work, @JohnTheJack I liked the way the letter ended: Your appeal has therefore been upheld. Please accept my thanks for bringing this to our attention. As you may be aware, the HRA is consulting on transparency and openness in health and social care research and would be keen to hear...

Good point about acronyms. But bear in mind that this project might need to recruit 20,000 people (more, since some won't meet the selection criteria). So we will be going well beyond the current ME online community, and reaching people who don't know much about research. I think ME GWAS won't...

The Nacul 2011 Prevalence study found around 80% female cases for ME/CFS (Table 4 https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-9-91). The huge Norwegian study gives an incidence ratio of 3.2 female cases for every male case (76% female). And just about every mecfs study ever...

Copied The Nacul 2011 Prevalence study found around 80% female cases for ME/CFS (Table 4 https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-9-91). The huge Norwegian study gives an incidence ratio of 3.2 female cases for every male case (76% female). And just about every mecfs...

That’s a good list and I’m sure that’s the right way to go to really interest people in the field. I think two other findings are worth adding to the list: The fact that, consistently, around 80% of patients are women. This is pretty unusual, I think. And while more females receive a mental...

Moderator note: This post and the next two have been copied, and subsequent posts moved from this thread: JAMA -"Advances in understanding the Pathophysiology of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" by Anthony Komaroff Posts about sex ratio have been moved to a new thread: ME/CFS Epidemiology - sex...

Moderator note: Some posts have been copied and some posts have been moved from ME Epidemiology - prevalence and peak ages of onset Copied That’s a good list and I’m sure that’s the right way to go to really interest people in the field. I think two other findings are worth adding to the...

Great work, Andy – thank you! This is very interesting and also a fabulous resource. Pity the scale of research in the UK is still so small. You’re right that we need to take action.

@wigglethemouse "Here is an example to describe what @Simon M is saying. Some folks believe mutations in the gene MBL2 play a role in making folks susceptible to ME. ... There are many gene mutations that can affect the bodies ability to fight infection. " Thanks, that is the kind of thing I am...

@Yvonne , I am glad you liked the blog, even if you don't like the idea of the GWAS. I will yry to addresss your main points. I would agree with that because that's what's needed to make progress and to develop treatments to help people with ME. I would also argue that is exactly whywe need a...

Subgroups I think this is really one for @Chris Ponting but I don't think he'll be around for a bit so let me try to answer some of these points. There are not many "very precisely defined" diseases. Type II diabetes, for instance, is not a single entity but several conditions, and that is...

Yes, handling people who don't/won't meet the selection criteria will be tricky. But it may be useful to have a group within the GWAS of people who have chronic fatigue the don't meet the criteria. And hopefully all the different patient groups and charities will come together to back this...

Thanks for all the suggestions. This is a huge target but I think of the whole community gets behind its we could do this and establish the world's largest ME/CFS study. From the blog: But recruiting so many ME/CFS patients would pose an unprecedented challenge for the researchers. The study...

I am not aware of any biobanks with significant amounts of relevant DNA data. There is Klimas but I don't know if it's feasible to incorporate that data. Epigenetics is a different approach. Critically, epigenetics reflect gene activity, which can be an effect of other things upstream, which...

Thanks for the excellent questions and I am delighted that so much interest in this. I will answer as much of this as I can myself as I don't know if Chris Ponting is available at the moment. Yes, it is an enormous number! I am not sure if that many patients have ever come together for a single...

Researchers propose deep trawl of DNA to help uncover the causes of ME/CFS Analysing the DNA of thousands of patients can help to uncover the genetic roots of diseases and shed light on the underlying biological mechanisms. This can reveal targets for drug development. A new and very different...

He was also interviewed earlier in the day, which you can watch here, about why we need much more research funding, his immune signature study and why he wants to see a huge genetic study with up to 20,000 patients.

Prof @Chris Ponting made a cracking seven-minute speech at the Glasgow millions missing event, captured here It really is worth a listen. He talked about a range of things including progress in science, that ME scientists are listening to legitimate questions and concerns about science and...

Nanoelectric device could lead to a diagnostic blood test for ME/CFS Last week, Dr Ron Davis’s team published a pilot study showing remarkable results for their nanoneedle device. Strikingly, there was no overlap between the results for 20 ME/CFS patients and those for 20 healthy controls...