Search results

Reference 9 is Bateman L., Bested A.C., Bonilla H.F., Chheda B.V., Chu L., Curtin J.M., et al. Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: essentials of diagnosis and management. Mayo Clin Proc. Which is a problem. No references. Unfortunately, the NICE Chronic pain (primary and...

It looks as though they have collected up a range of poorly evidenced statements about biological characteristics of ME/CFS. And assumed that rodent torture (e.g. repeated swimming to exhaustion) creates a model of chronic fatigue syndrome. And then believed dubious impacts of acupuncture on...

Abstract Chronic fatigue syndrome is a neurological disorder characterized by extreme fatigue that lasts for a long time and doesn't alleviate with rest. The number of the cases has been increasing during the era of COVID-19 pandemic. Acupuncture may have some effect on chronic fatigue syndrome...

I would mention the wide range of diseases that can cause ME/CFS - starting with EBV/glandular fever, because many people know people who took a long time to recover after glandular fever, mentioning Ebola, Ross River fever, Q fever, and Covid-19.nI would note that there is no evidence that any...

A reminder that we have this thread to talk about acupuncture generally Acupuncture and other traditional Chinese medicine news and discussion thread I just re-read the good article linked in the first post of that thread again. It concluded pretty much what we see here: acupuncture often shows...

Acupuncture and moxibustion for chronic fatigue syndrome: A systematic review and network meta-analysis, 2022, Fang et al A review of mostly Chinese studies

For example, from 4.3 of the Supplementary materials on the Chalder Fatigue Scale - total score outcome: This is a map of the actual comparisons. You can see the substantial number of comparisons of control treatments with acupuncture, but not much else. And here are the calculated...

Re 'Western medicine' There were only 4 studies with 'western medicine' Xiao 2014 - Vitamin B1 +B6+oryzanol+paroxetine vs Moxibustion Huang 2017 - Vitamin B1 +oryzanol vs acupuncture Wang 2013 - Fluoxetine hydrochloride vs moxibustion Liu Chun 2017 - Oryzanol vs moxibustion Oryzanol - lipids...

Of the 51 studies, only 11 have a control arm (rather than multiple treatments). Actually most of the control arms were potentially blinded. Most of the trials with plausible controls were testing acupuncture - this might be why acupuncture alone didn't come out of the review very well...

So, as far as I can work out so far: The selection of participants is poor, with a Fukuda criteria meaning that the participants have chronic fatigue, but don't necessarily have ME/CFS. The participants are also typically fairly young, and have only had chronic fatigue for a relatively short...

Looking at the search terms, regarding the names of the disease are No Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, no ME/CFS There are Chinese language searches listed in the supplementary materials. It would be interesting to know more about what the searches are.

I thought I'd have a look at the one study reportedly done in Australia. That's all of the details provided in the references. There is no journal given and when I google it, I can't find the paper. When I look at the 51 papers listed in the supplementary materials, there is no paper with Yun...

It's all pretty opaque with so many studies testing different things. From Limitations, it looks as though the quality of the studies was low: Here's the last two sentences from the Conclusion:

So, yes, Fukuda. I'm not clear what the outcomes considered are yet, apart from the hopelessly flawed Chalder Fatigue Scale is one. FS-14 is the Chalder Fatigue Scale.

No mention of PEM as a distinguishing symptom. It does review some Chinese language papers, which is useful; it will be including papers that NICE probably did not review.

It's not starting super well.

I am assessing a recommendation by a doctor for acupuncture for ME/CFS, supported by this paper. I think all of the individual studies on acupuncture and moxibustion we have looked at have been flawed and unreliable, so the conclusion of this systematic review is a bit surprising and bears...

Abstract Background: Research into acupuncture and moxibustion and their application for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has been growing, but the findings have been inconsistent. Objective: To evaluate the existing randomized clinical trials (RCTs), compare the efficacy of acupuncture...

We have made a new discussion thread on SOD3 Superoxide dismutase, SOD, SOD3

https://www.thehastingscenter.org/what-is-preventable-about-obesity/ The Hastings Center often has thought-provoking essays on bioethics topics.