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Objective measures of post exertional malaise Just wanted to highlight the idea submitted by the famous anonymous author: The other idea is something that came from a 'citizen scientist' patient. The key clinical problem in ME/CFS is exertion intolerance. I think we need to be able to measure...

I have now read the Tomas paper and the Myhill/McLaren Howard response, and think it would help to focus on some of the detail. Overall, the findings in the new paper appear to be pretty good evidence that the MES test isn't reliable, because it can't separate patients and controls. However...

This strikes me as a big step forward for the field. I remember reading the original paper and feeling that the results looked almost too good to be true. But the acid test is always a replication attempt, ideally by an independent group and that’s exactly what’s happened here. An independent...

Update [to blog]: Eric Lander highlighted further GWAS successes at a recent lecture at the Broad Institute (which is based at Harvard and MIT). Heart disease. Analysis of significant SNPs revealed that HDL-cholesterol is not protective (which explains why the $5 billion investment by the...

Thanks,@Woolie, lots of good points there and I now know quite a lot more about anorexia nervosa. There are indeed several possible ways in which the association with metabolic and related factors SNPs can be explained non-accordingly. But also no clear evidence that they can't play the...

Thanks, @Woolie, and I also thought it was interesting about the value of GWAS I think we might be slightly misunderstanding each other so let me start by summarising what I understand from what you said: 1. Anorexia nervosa is primarily an OCD-type of behaviour. 2. The link with...

Worth reading the study mentioned in the tweet: it relies on demographic data to reidentify people. there was nothing in the PACE trial dataset that would help anyone, at least not as far as I can tell from the article. I suspect that Michael Sharpe hasn't read it.

You have. Interestingly, there was no correlation between anorexia nervosa and SNPs associated with IQ. From the evidence presented we can't tell, but my reading is that it is more likely than unlikely — and further analysis (and research!) could sort this out. Diagnosed cases of anorexia...

That’s very interesting and I wonder if they had any more success treating AN in the past. I also tought that @Woolie made a good point in reply: "What's changed since 1960 is the high social desirability of female thinness, I'd expect that nowadays, there'd be proportionally more cases where...

Genome-wide association study identifies eight risk loci and implicates metabo-psychiatric origins for anorexia nervosa This is a good example of the potential of genome-wide association studies to transform the understanding of an illness — especially one without good treatments. From the...

Great work, @JohnTheJack I liked the way the letter ended: Your appeal has therefore been upheld. Please accept my thanks for bringing this to our attention. As you may be aware, the HRA is consulting on transparency and openness in health and social care research and would be keen to hear...

Good point about acronyms. But bear in mind that this project might need to recruit 20,000 people (more, since some won't meet the selection criteria). So we will be going well beyond the current ME online community, and reaching people who don't know much about research. I think ME GWAS won't...

The Nacul 2011 Prevalence study found around 80% female cases for ME/CFS (Table 4 https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-9-91). The huge Norwegian study gives an incidence ratio of 3.2 female cases for every male case (76% female). And just about every mecfs study ever...

Copied The Nacul 2011 Prevalence study found around 80% female cases for ME/CFS (Table 4 https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7015-9-91). The huge Norwegian study gives an incidence ratio of 3.2 female cases for every male case (76% female). And just about every mecfs...

That’s a good list and I’m sure that’s the right way to go to really interest people in the field. I think two other findings are worth adding to the list: The fact that, consistently, around 80% of patients are women. This is pretty unusual, I think. And while more females receive a mental...

Moderator note: This post and the next two have been copied, and subsequent posts moved from this thread: JAMA -"Advances in understanding the Pathophysiology of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" by Anthony Komaroff Posts about sex ratio have been moved to a new thread: ME/CFS Epidemiology - sex...

Moderator note: Some posts have been copied and some posts have been moved from ME Epidemiology - prevalence and peak ages of onset Copied That’s a good list and I’m sure that’s the right way to go to really interest people in the field. I think two other findings are worth adding to the...

Great work, Andy – thank you! This is very interesting and also a fabulous resource. Pity the scale of research in the UK is still so small. You’re right that we need to take action.

@wigglethemouse "Here is an example to describe what @Simon M is saying. Some folks believe mutations in the gene MBL2 play a role in making folks susceptible to ME. ... There are many gene mutations that can affect the bodies ability to fight infection. " Thanks, that is the kind of thing I am...

@Yvonne , I am glad you liked the blog, even if you don't like the idea of the GWAS. I will yry to addresss your main points. I would agree with that because that's what's needed to make progress and to develop treatments to help people with ME. I would also argue that is exactly whywe need a...