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PON1 is being studied in GWI because it can break down organophosphates, so if organophosphates are involved, we should be able to detect whether people with the more effective PON1 gene variant are more protected. Just based on a quick search, PON3 doesn't seem to also break down...

The comment published in response to the paper about not matching ancestry has been nagging at me. I tried to understand the arguments, but instead my conclusion is that this is a complicated topic. The main potential issue that seems like it should be a concern is the possibility of there...

I'm working with the assumption that it is a given that for a large proportion of people with ME/CFS, if they went to a sleep doctor and did a sleep study, they would not be seen to have a sleep disorder requiring CPAP. You think that may be incorrect, and that nearly everyone with ME/CFS would...

Well, I'd be interested in seeing specifically that patients with ME/CFS, Gulf War illness, or fibromyalgia, who would not be prescribed CPAP had they received a proper diagnostic test based on standard practice, would nevertheless improve with CPAP.

There have been a few instances of mass sarin exposure. Here's the event list from the history section of the Sarin Wikipedia page, with bolding added for the events where a large number of people may have been exposed, comparable to the exposure seen during the Gulf War in 1991:

Some posts have been moved to: Medical assistance in dying (MAID), and how it relates to ME/CFS

This seems to be an official government report, which includes a section describing the case: MDRC Report 2024 – 4: Complex Same Day / Next Day Provisions Snippets [Edit: from pages 21-22]:

I'm not sure about the association of [edit: "reduced parasympathetic responsiveness to controlled breathing] with fatigue in the same cohort, but might the association of lower hair cortisol with fatigue be better explained by lower physical activity in people who are fatigued? Objectively...

It's interesting that they seem to consider CFS as mainly severe fatigue, and don't mention PEM. I suppose it's included in "and so forth". The 1.46% seems to be based on the average prevalence of Fukuda CFS from the meta-analysis by Lim et al, which seems like a less reliable figure than the...

For the association they did find (higher fatigue at follow-up correlates to lower hair cortisol at follow-up) the correlation looks to be fairly small (R²=0.02). Unadjusted p=0.026.

Nature News: "First-of-a-kind stem-cell therapies set for approval in Japan" 23 February 2026 MedicalXpress: "Japan approves stem-cell treatment for Parkinson's in world first" 6 March 2026

Phase I/II trial of iPS-cell-derived dopaminergic cells for Parkinson’s disease Abstract Parkinson’s disease is caused by the loss of dopamine neurons, causing motor symptoms. Initial cell therapies using fetal tissues showed promise but had complications and ethical concerns1,2,3,4,5...

That's a good thought. Maybe it's worth trying to compile firsthand accounts. A quick search pulled up this qualitative study, and I just skimmed so far and saw these quotes: Women of the Gulf War: Understanding Their Military and Health Experiences Over 30 Years (Military Medicine, 2022)

I'm interested because I think some of the researchers of GWI might be right about nerve gases or other toxins causing the syndrome (maybe including the cases of GWI-associated ME/CFS). If that turns out to be correct, then it might be a big clue for understanding ME/CFS to know that a specific...

Just a note that these figures for specific symptom prevalences may be slightly off, as Table 4 shows prevalences after excluding individuals with certain conditions: It shouldn't change it too much. The full sample of GWV is 1545 individuals. 17% of cases with the symptom of "feeling unwell...

I started reading section "2.2.1. Post-Exertional Malaise in GWI". This is the first sentence about prevalence of PEM in GWI: The study cited is this: Peripheral cholinergic function in humans with chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War syndrome and with illness following organophosphate exposure...

It looks like the thesis noted here cites some more recent evidence about GWI and PEM that might be good to dig into:

The million dollar question. This thread has a bit more speculation on that: Gulf War Illness - causes

There's no control group, but they say other studies have shown a prevalence of 4%. I'm not sure why the second paper is cited, from the abstract, but the first one seems to be be studying a sample intentionally chosen to have higher than average rates of sleep disorders, which I think means...