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A reminder for this meeting.

This finding fits with the scenario of people who don't have to rush out to work (the more ill people with CFS) having a slightly lower morning cortisol response. Awakening levels are about 5 g/dL in the chart. They said that they log transformed the data in order to analyse it, but reported...

Results The differences in the two cortisol profiles (CFS and healthy) are fairly minimal (that y axis is cut). The small difference in peak cortisol is easily explained by differences in typical morning activity demands. We have seen that bodies get used to activity levels, with cortisol...

This is an old study, but it's part of a body of work that seems responsible for a lot of what I think are poorly evidenced assumptions about ME/CFS. It is also focused on a bugbear of mine - cortisol. Criteria: They note that previous studies have been contradictory: Morning saliva...

https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/93/3/703/2598104?login=false Attenuated Morning Salivary Cortisol Concentrations in a Population-Based Study of Persons with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Well Controls Urs M. Nater, Elizabeth Maloney, Roumiana S. Boneva, Brian M. Gurbaxani, Jin-Mann...

I think the answer to that is 'no'. Some studies are ridiculously small and probably have biased selection criteria. All poorly characterise ME/CFS, either mixing it up with self-reported chronic fatigue or applying loose criteria. In some studies, endometriosis is poorly characterised...

The article makes a good point. A pain scale has to be interpreted in the light of an individual's experience. A child, for example, may not have experienced much pain in their life and so the range of their scale may not be large, they may not be able to imagine pain much worse than what they...

Isn't it ridiculous that we have no good idea if ME/CFS symptoms change reliably with phases of the menstrual cycle or with pregnancy? Perfect natural experiments that might actually tell us something about the cause, and at least would give women some ideas of what to expect.

On endometriosis in people with ME/CFS: Endometriosis and ME/CFS The discussion covers the 2019 paper noted above.

Yes, but I think the Unger etc papers noted above have played a larger part in spreading that idea than the sample size and strictness of criteria of the studies warrant.

frontiers in Pediatrics: Endometriosis as a Comorbid Condition in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by Boneva, Unger et al 2019 2019 study - The abstract suggests that there were 36 women with CFS and 48 controls. It looks as if this 2019 paper is a re-hash of the 2010 study above. It's just as...

The authors don't seem to care much about the distinction between chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome. Given that fatigue is a common symptom of endometriosis, and the data on co-morbidities came from a self-report survey, I don't think we can be sure this study really looked at the...

Co‐occurrence of immune‐mediated conditions and endometriosis among adolescents and adult women, Shafrir et al, 2021 The sample of (mostly young) women with endometriosis was well characterised: It reported odds of women with various conditions having co-occurring endometriosis e.g. chronic...

This is an earlier study related to the one above: Gynecological history in chronic fatigue syndrome: a population-based case-control study, 2010, Boneva, Reeves et al Kansas, US sample - 36 women with CFS (Reeves criteria - loose), and 48 'non-fatigued controls'. It's not hard to poke holes...

Early menopause and other gynecologic risk indicators for CFS in women, 2015, Boneva, Lin, Unger A study of 157 women in Georgia, US, based on a self-administered questionnaire. It found The wider study of which this was a subset used a very loose CFS criteria, finding a prevalence of CFS of...

Endometriosis: A Retrospective Analysis of Clinical Data from a Cohort of 4,083 Patients, With Focus on Symptoms, 2022, Signorile et al There is this study of women with endometriosis. It concluded oddly that: Members of the forum weren't very impressed. The authors seemed to be confused...

There was a UK MEA survey, I'm not sure how many people/women answered. It was reported that 15.5% of the respondents said that they had endometriosis. I don't know if that percentage was of women answering or of all people answering. The prevailing rate of endometriosis in women after...

It is often suggested that rates of endometriosis are higher in women with ME/CFS than in women in general. I thought it would be useful to put the evidence we have for or against the idea in one place.

Great to hear of some hope for early detection of endometriosis. It's frustrating that we still don't even have decent information about this. At least I don't think we do. Do you know of anything SNT? I really must make a list of research I'd like to see done. An epidemiological study on...

Yes, vision does get worse with age, although I think short-sightedness is pretty stable during adulthood. I had had a stable vision measurement for years before ME/CFS and it didn't change after either. The 'blurriness' somehow didn't show itself with a standard eye chart where you have one...