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IL-2 in the EVs was reported as being higher in ME/CFS, and that was the strongest difference in the EV cytokines. But, there was a lot of overlap. On the EV cytokines - good to see some studies agreeing with each other with their findings

They looked at the data and removed the data associated with patients who had a high number of outlier values. That (removing outliers at the patient level) seems like a good way to get more homogeneous samples. Obviously there's a limit to it. They seemed to treat the four datasets...

49 ME/CFS cases; 49 controls Maureen Hanson's Cornell lab and the Lipkin and Hornig Columbia lab - looks like the latter had the samples and the former had the money to analyse them. The samples had previously been analysed for plasma proteins and cytokines, with patient data attached; this...

The reference for that is Baraniuk JN. Review of the midbrain ascending arousal network nuclei and implications for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), Gulf War Illness (GWI) and Postexertional Malaise (PEM). Brain Sci. 2022 For me, the jury is still out on that one...

I think it's a natural human reaction to look at someone in a bad situation and have a passing thought of 'why don't they just do [xxx]? That would make their situation so much better. If I was in that situation, I would sort myself out'. Often that thought is held while not having the first...

It was a bit hard to work out what they were saying in the abstract. But, it's clear in the first paragraph of the Introduction. Even allowing for some clumsy phrasing due to translation, this is a 'get up off the couch' app. It seems that the Long Covid people just need to be taught 'the...

Carson is well and truly slammed in that twitter thread; some great posts. But I think this isn't a helpful argument: The people who are assertive enough to get diagnosed and turn up on twitter to talk about it might be 'Type A'. Doesn't mean the large numbers of people who are undiagnosed...

The animal model of CFS is likely to be awful and ridiculous, but perhaps astragalus could affect microbiome diversity in favour of SCFA-producing bacteria. That could be a reasonable question to investigate. We have seen some hints of reduced short-chain fatty acids production in the guts of...

Oh, I really shouldn't laugh, but I did.

Good comment, Trish. Yes, that makes sense. That's so wrong, isn't it. If the clinics are CBT sausage machines, they are doing more harm than good. I am sure many people who go to these clinics think they will be properly screened for alternative diagnoses. We need specialist doctors there...

That's the beauty of wearable technology. Daily steps; morning heart rate can be automatically sent to a secure data collection facility; the data can be automatically analysed. The results can be produced with no effort on the clinic staff's part and no chance* for the clinic staff to...

Sure, but the project is described as producing a Clinical Assessment Toolkit, certainly to be used several times on the same patient, and potentially contributing to clinic evaluations (e.g. is the benefit produced worth what the government is spending on it?; do outcomes vary by service?)...

Or perhaps the data is tucked away and never sees the light of day. I do think the data should be obtained. With the government funding the study received, (two governments), it should be possible.

It's a bit similar to the CBT for ME/CFS fixing faulty beliefs, rather than providing support for coping. The actual purpose of the therapy (fixing the illness or helping people to cope) can slide around a bit, depending on who the audience is.

Yes, it seems very odd. I thought this was old news, and yet it's being proclaimed as something new. There was that Brain on Fire story way back in 2012. I guess we should celebrate that psychiatry is slowly leaving its version of 'demonic possession' behind.

We've heard at the German ME/CFS conference from the Norwegian researchers, Fluge and Mella, about how they have successfully used Fitbits. They published a paper on it last year: Activity monitoring and patient-reported outcome measures in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome...

She showed a steady and substantial improvement over time, an upward curve. There was a dip for a bit when it turned out that she had a viral infection, but she returned back to the upward curve of improvement. So yes, she was improving, but the viral infection temporarily set her back. Edit...

This was the neurologist who has a relatively big ME/CFS practice. I think he said several times that it was important to review the effects of drugs and not persist with drugs that were not having an effect, I don't think it was said just in response to a question. It's a fair question, why...

About Nacul and the Canadian clinic It's possible my quick notes were coloured by my view of a previous talk Nacul gave about the centre, and my disappointment then that he had not taken the opportunity to run a really science-based centre. I mean, the clinic could have been churning out...

Klaus Wirth on vascular dysfunction That's me done, sorry