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This is very interesting work, but I wanted to red flag the conclusions : Based on Bhupesh Prusty‘s recent conference presentation and accompanying slides about the work behind this paper, the results do not come close to supporting such strong conclusions. I wrote a commentary about the...

Thanks, this is very interesting research. But I don’t think it can bear too much weight. It’s very small ( n = 6/6). And the findings could be explained by Fitness: 78% of men and 86% of women in the population meet their definition of 'sedentary' used to select controls. The authors noted a...

Re-nanoneedle They published a paper in a prestigious journal and made a lot of noise about it, and the results were pretty striking. I thought the main problem was that the researcher leading on the nanoneedle have moved on, But even so it does seem strange how they’ve lost all enthusiasm for...

Also, thanks to everyone. ME research is not in great shape, but there are more reasons for optimism than I was allowing. Probably my biggest research disappointment is the failure to follow up the nanoneedle findings. This clearly is never going to happen, but what I really want to see pursued...

Re replicated Raman Spectroscopy findings That looks very interesting - I can't think of more promising biomarker findings, especially since they could separate ME from disease controls. I'm surprised they haven't been able to get further funding from the MEA or ME Research. I think this will...

I agree, my biggest source of optimism (along with Decode ME) is the amount of money and scientific expertise going into long Covid research).

I seem to remember being impressed by the first study and much less so by the second. That might be a comment on my memory rather than the research - could you summarise the key replication data? Interesting, and certainly under my radar. That point about expertise is key IMO. So often...

That’s a good point (also @Trish). As you both say, it is a very small sample. That was my thinking too. But... That would be very interesting if the findings are strong. This seemed the most impressive programme of the 3 NIH-funded centres, and I agree about the team approach and a lot of...

Hi, I’ve not been able to closely follow the status of ME research for quite a while, but my take is that we’re not getting very far. Mostly, it seems to be researchers publishing fairly weak evidence in favour of pet hypotheses. This has been the main approach for the last few decades, and...

Thanks, @Trish @Tia. It’s good to hear that these commentaries help. But to a large extent, I write them to help me get things straight in my own mind. Often, when I first try to explain something, I realise I haven’t understood the situation properly myself. ADDED Einstein is supposed to...

I missed recent updates, including the wise suggestion lfrom @Trisha to wait until the paper is published. I'd already written some comments after watching watched the video, so here goes. It was interesting that Bhupesh Prusty started off by saying he believed herpesviruses are the core...

Arguably, it’s an edge case in science more generally. This is an interesting tweet from Brian Noseck, one of the leaders of the open science movement, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Basically, he says that trustworthiness and replicability of research findings is poor across many...

It’s certainly true of the migraine research, – until the recent large and very well done trials of monoclonal antibodies. But I’ve looked at other illnesses for various reasons, and have been struck by how commonly the research is badly designed, underpowered, and biased.

Thank you for a brilliant and very helpful analysis, @ME/CFS Skeptic. I've tried to summarise it for my own benefit, and would appreciate your view on if I've got it right. "One fatal flaw is okay" Rigidd systems for assessing evidence quality don't allow reviewers to simply fail a study for...

This is wonderful work. I haven’t seen some of these poems for a while, and some of the lines are startling: thank you, Veronica

Thanks. Could you explain a bit more about autonomic discharge, and also if that ties into the point you made earlier about a key role for the hypothalamus?

Me: how does the inhibitory signal model explains the consequences of overriding that signal? I was hoping that, at least in the case of illness, we would know what causes the reaction to overexertion – because that would good be a clue to what is going wrong in ME. Do you see a way to...

@Jonathan Edwards, how does the inhibitory signal model explains the consequences of overriding that signal? When we have flu or are ill and press on, we usually feel terrible soon afterwards. Is that an extra level of inhibitory signal trying to reinforce the message, or is the ill feeling...

That’s an interesting explanation for the lack of lactate production (I didn’t know about the lactase dehydrogenase issue)). But I don’t think it can explain the single maximal exercise test. One of the slightly surprising, but consistent findings is that the maximal exercise results for people...

Comment — does endothelial dysfunction play an important role in the illness? If replication shows that endothelial dysfunction is the norm in ME/CFS, that will be quite something. I'm not aware of any other objective markers linked to the illness. The bigger question, though, is whether or...