Search results

I don't think this study should be dismissed out of hand just because of the author's BPS allegiances. Although this is not an ME/CFS study per se (since he did not measure PEM), it still tells us something interesting about the relationship between early immune activation and persistent fatigue...

I've read Hyde's book. It's full of bombastic claims and zero supporting evidence (evidence meaning replicated peer-reviewed research).

Well it’s easy to change the results by for instance taking medications. Hyde’s buddy Goldstein observed decades ago that sending patients for a SPECT scan was of no use to him anymore since a drug he gave them could change the pattern of brain activation within seconds and in the opposite...

There is a reason no one uses SPECT scans anymore.

He publishes nothing because there is nothing whatsoever there to report.

So, this talk was more interesting than I anticipated given Pariante's egregious past statement that ME/CFS is caused by 'excessive rest'. It appears that the subset of people who develop persistent fatigue following IFN alpha have a significantly higher IL-6 and IL-10 response to treatment...

It might even work in our favour if the same abnormality is shown in a 'real' disease like MS or lupus. Harder to deny that way. If a novel, unfamiliar test shows an abnormality only in ME/CFS, the BPS crowd will still be able to play god of the gaps strategy and say it's caused by spending too...

I think the purpose of research is to get the silent majority of doctors, especially the younger generation, to accept that this is real, people who may not have strongly held BPS views or may not even know what ME/CFS is. Obviously the BPS lobby will never accept any amount or quality of...

Looking at some recent reviews of 100 year old psychiatric literature, it appears that fever therapy (pyrotherapy) by intentionally infecting the patient with malaria was quite effective for neurosyphilis (this was in the pre-antibiotic era). About a quarter of psychotic patients were able to...

I think he said some might have elevated serotonin and others low depending on receptor adaptations that would take place.

I love how academic psychiatry keeps rediscovering things (like fever) that every asylum shrink knew 100 years ago.

There have been some previous metabolomic studies of MDD and other conditions labelled psychiatric but you know how it goes, everyone measures different things. There are a lot of metabolites.

This study measured plasma metabolites. What's going on in the brain is anyone's guess until we see some CSF data.

Small sample size but strengths of the study include using medication-free first-episode major depression and an illness control group (bipolar disorder). Full text at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-018-0183-x

Any pointed criticism they receive of their work they refer to as intimidation.

30 Years of Unmitigated Failure

It's one zealot's opinion piece. Modern neuroimaging studies not only don't show brain damage but in fact show increased hippocampal neurogenesis after the treatment.

Direct stimulation of cortical areas through which the electrical current passes seems more linked to side effects than efficacy of ECT provided you have achieved a generalised seizure which is of course the goal of every treatment session. This is the reasoning behind using right unilateral...

“Unmodified” ECT is the 1950s was nothing like it is today with general anaesthesia and muscle relaxant. Patients seem far less distressed than going to the dentist tbh.

It's really shocking how far they are taking things with this CBT stuff. I've seen no methodologically adequate studies to show that this therapy works for anything other than simple phobias.