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My mistake. 6% glucose w/v is 6 g glucose per 100 mL of solution, not 1 L. It seems to me that most of the research is oriented towards rehydrating athletes, that is, both retaining fluid and accelerating its delivery. At least, the latter is the focus of this review of the evidence base: Fate...

I came across this study when I looked up whether electrolyte powders / oral rehydration salts (ORS) without added glucose were effective. Wikipedia explains that this cannot be the case (bolding mine): This study confirms that glucose is essential for absorbing the rehydration solution, but...

Background Rapid fluid delivery from ingested beverages is the goal of oral rehydration solutions (ORS) and sports drinks. Objective The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of increasing carbohydrate and sodium content upon fluid delivery using a deuterium oxide (D2O)...

The authors did not specify which CFS diagnostic criteria they used, if any. Below is their description of CFS:

Serum GDF-15 Levels Accurately Differentiate Patients with Primary Mitochondrial Myopathy, Manifesting with Exercise Intolerance and Fatigue, from Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Authors from the Neuromuscular Disorders Unit of the Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre in Madrid (national...

1.5 point on the PHQ-9 scale does not seem to be a minimal clinically important difference, at least for moderate depression...

The investigators recruited enough participants to have both an active intervention group and a placebo control one of adequate sizes for statistical purposes. It is disappointing that they did not do so, especially as it would have been easy to provide placebos since the drugs were in tablet form.

I like ME Action’s 4 page pacing and activity management guide as it starts with a focus on PEM and then dedicates one page to explaining that exertion is not (just) exercise. It lists different kinds of exertion with examples which is useful for newly diagnosed people who may not realize that...

Safety, tolerability, and efficacy of zavegepant 10 mg nasal spray for the acute treatment of migraine in the USA: a phase 3, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled multicentre trial Lipton et al, March 2023 Summary Background Intranasal formulations can provide treatment options for...

Zavzpret may be the most difficult drug name to pronounce that I have encountered. Who at Pfizer thought it would be a suitable name? From the results of the trial: “2 h after the treatment dose, more participants in the zavegepant group than in the placebo group had pain freedom (147 [24%] of...

Yes, you are. This was my main mistake when I took time off of work, before I became severe. Screen time (whether on a smartphone, computer or TV) is cognitive exertion, not rest, and unfortunately radical rest requires strict discipline that is terribly hard to stick to.

Note that in the DSM-V, any abnormal change in eating / feeding behavior that does not match the criteria for characteristic eating disorders (namely: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, rumination disorder, pica and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder) can be diagnosed as either “other...

Prof Tate also vouched for the Lightning Process in a webinar last November (I believe it was the ANZMES’ AGM). It is sad that he has fallen for this pseudoscience.

I would think that in the particular case of poorly understood chronic illnesses, any advance in the understanding of their pathophysiology that yields a diagnostic biomarker would also lead to a relatively quick renaming based on it. It is not only that patients are keen to step away from the...

I can vouch for the valve-less version of these masks, the 3M Aura 9330+ FFP3. The fit is excellent — no air leaks out at all, in contrast with the FFP2 masks I had been wearing before (which were from a German manufacturer) — and I have worn them at the hospital for hours with no breathability...

The difference between NICE’s conditional approval of these therapies and their rigorous evidence review in pharmaceutical company Janssen’s appeal for the approval of esketamine for depression is truly striking. For reference...

Taking action to change the situation for the better is of course necessary but it is not possible if one is debilitated by unbearable pain.

I may be mistaken, but one aspect of the problem we may have overlooked in this discussion is that sometimes, food itself is not the reason why some severe ME patients can’t eat. For example, when they overexert themselves doing another activity (such as cognitive activity, or maintaining...

We should be wary of calling the inability to process food in ME an eating disorder if just for translation purposes: in French, “eating disorder” is named “disorders of eating behaviour” (troubles du comportement alimentaire) which infers a psychological cause. Further, it may well be that the...

Unfortunately, I should point out that if a working group is to be set up, the representative(s) of the British Society of Gastroenterology is likely to be opposed to tube feeding in ME at all. @Jonathan Edwards One author of the BSG’s guideline on functional dyspepsia, Dr Peter Paine (from the...