A systematic review of metabolomic dysregulation in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ (CFS/ME/SEID):Huth,Staines et al May 2020

A systematic review of metabolomic dysregulation in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (CFS/ME/SEID)

• Teilah Kathryn Huth,
• Natalie Eaton-Fitch,
• Donald Staines &
• Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik
  
  
  
  https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12967-020-02356-2

 

But I thought NCNED had solved it all with their gold standard tests proving it's all to do with calcium?? [/end needless snark]

Things I found of note (my bolding).

Interesting to see ICC authors happy to use other criteria - of the eleven included papers, four used Fukuda only, and two used Fukuda and Oxford, and none of those mention PEM as being a requirement. I can understand why, no included paper used ICC.

This bolded line is inaccurate. The first reference is to a paper in which I can see no discussion of "a higher prevalence rate and a classification system that is more heterogeneous" and the second reference is to the Lenny Jason et al paper that uses a woeful description of PEM and then only applies it to the IOM, not the other selection criteria he discusses.

In regard to ICC (and CCC).

Quite frankly, I don't understand their reasoning - it seems to make no sense to me.

 

This seems a pretty weak paper. Why didn't they make a stronger recommendation on what to do moving forward. Their recommendations seem a bit wishy washy. I don't have the ability to read the paper in detail in full so I picked a few points. Here's one where they say

Sorry, but Hanson particularly states here the two Metabolon studies were not the same
Comprehensive Circulatory Metabolomics in ME/CFS Reveals Disrupted Metabolism of Acyl Lipids and Steroids
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7023305/

I think this field is still in it's infancy, and few standards exist that allow comparison across studies. Processing and handling of blood have a huge effect on some metabolites as Karl Morten has explained in one of his studies, and Hanson et al above. Fasting vs Non fasting, time of day, also have an effect. Until these are controlled across studies, and common standards are used, it will be hard to compare results. CLIA certified labs are starting to come on line which should help.

I think Karl Morten analysed 30,000+ metabolites in the mass spectrometer at Oxford, the largest number by far to date, but only a very low percentage of them are known metabolites. And when he took a second cohort collection from the UK ME/CFS biobank results were not repeatable with the polish cohort.

For those interested in metabolomics repeatability @Andy posted a video by Oliver Feihn in 2019 on this topic
https://www.s4me.info/threads/cente...itys-nih-funded-center.191/page-2#post-193193

This is an interesting paper on some of the challenges facing biomarker discovery using metabolomics. I thought including some of the detailed information such as in this 2018 paper would have made for better reading on why the ME/CFS studies have differences.
A Framework for Development of Useful Metabolomic Biomarkers and Their Effective Knowledge Translation
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6316283/

 

Tee Hee. Love the comment

 

I think it’s great they’re looking at this.

 

I wonder why this group produced 2 reviews (neuroimaging and metabolomics) in such a short period. Possibly a way to keep publishing during COVID?

 

PhD students are all required to write and publish literature reviews (and it's not uncommon for post-docs to do the same).