A nanoelectronics-blood-based diagnostic biomarker for ME/CFS (2019) Esfandyarpour, Davis et al

I asked the OMF about testing GWS patients last September.
https://www.s4me.info/threads/ronal...tation-at-the-iimec13.5793/page-4#post-106159

 

I was just thinking that the more numerous and varied the diseases that the nanoneedle detects, the more difficult it's going to be figure out the common denominator, and it would increase the likelihood that the denominator is a common consequence of most diseases.

Which makes me wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to run the test on identical twins, where only one has ME. If it's positive in both, it might indicate that it's related to some kind of uncommon genetic predisposition that is present, but rare, in the healthy population.

Just thinking out loud. I'm sure they've already considered these possibilities and so many more that I couldn't even imagine.

 

The news has even made its way to some tech sites
https://gizmodo.com/researchers-say-they-ve-created-a-blood-test-for-chroni-1834421604
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19831932

 

In the comments, this captures in a nutshell what excessive exercise can potentially do to pwME - pushing too hard past energy reserves, can shrink those reserves each time you do it, in a vicious downward spiral. Few words, big message.

 

Uh, the discussion on YC surprised me. It's usually a pretty "bro" community and when Afflicted was posted there it was the usual hate-fest. There was serious interest here. Yet more cracks in the damn (not a typo).

It definitely helps that this is heavy on technology. The main issue has always been to convince people that it's a problem worth solving. It's such a fascinating puzzle that should motivate anyone trying to make serious headways onto unbeaten paths.

 

One of the comments:

The guy recovered eventually though... Though maybe it was the physical activity that exacerbated the symptoms post-EBV in the first place...

 

It's being discussed on the medicine subreddit. Always interesting to see how they react to this kind of news.

 

Not found when I looked for it.

 

One takeaway, as usual, is how little they understand about it or that it's even worth the trouble. Strong attachment to the psychosomatic model, there is so much invested in it, especially the "his son being sick is a conflict of interest", just plain bizarre.

At least there are no overt insults or mockery. I guess that's some progress...

 

One comment says

Obtaining a complete separation of ME/CFS patients and controls on a biological measure is actually very difficult. I'm not sure any clear separation like the in nanoneedle results have been reported before in ME/CFS.

 

Actually that comment seems to be incoherent. I have no idea what the person thinks they are meaning.

 

Another comment

The idea that being a father to and living in the same household as a patient would make someone an unreliable researcher isn't very convincing.

What they really want to say here I suspect is that they simply don't like that someone believes ME/CFS is a serious organic illness.

If anything being able to observe the patient every day in their daily life over years is very helpful to understand the illness.

 

I think they are trying to pick holes in it...picking anything they can. It’s a technique in a debate to pick something left field say with confidence that it invalidates things to dismiss someone out of hand. By this logic though women should not be gynaecologists or someone with a child who has asthma shouldn’t treat others with asthma.

It’s clearly ridiculous to say this is a conflict of interest....how would this affect the quality of his work or his decision making to do the right thing?

 

Yet another comment

I can believe that conversion syndrome resembles ME/CFS because it's just one of the many labels that get applied to patients with illness nobody understands yet. Conversion syndrome however implies that the origin is emotional when there is no way I can see to prove or disprove this, at least in most cases. With ME/CFS at least there are people who want to figure out what's going on and it's a solvable problem, whereas people that believe in conversion disorder already think it's explained even though it's based on processes that cannot be observed. I think progress is unlikely under these circumstances.

 

I got that too, try this

 

Absolutely.

 

Clearly we should shut down all cancer research because everyone knows someone who died of cancer.

People are weird when they try to justify an irrational belief. The implication is clearly that Davis is desperately working on an impossible problem because Whitney could just walk out and resume his normal life just like that if he really wanted to. Still a long ways to go.

 

I think the Jenga game may be about to commence in earnest.

If there is replication with a different control does the cognitive dissonance get worse?

How many sticks have to be removed before the whole thing falls down?