Open Australia: Griffith Uni: ION CHANNEL DYSFUNCTION IN ME/CFS

Details here: https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/1523003/Recruitment_ion-channel-research.pdf

To facilitate sharing:

 

This group of researchers have been implicating TRP ion channels for several years now, has anybody
replicated their findings?
If it was a valid finding surely it would have been validated by now.

 

From the linked flyer

"This project aims to investigate the role of ion channel dysfunction in ME/CFS and PVS patients as potential diagnostic and therapeutic targets.

We are recruiting the following participants:

• ME/CFS group: participants who have received a diagnosis of ME/CFS (where diagnosis was made using the CCC 2003 or ICC 2011 definitions).

• PVS group: participants reporting chronic symptoms following a known viral infection, but have not received a diagnosis of ME/CFS nor other medical condition explaining the symptoms.

• Control group: participants who report no health concerns.


The inclusion criteria are as follows:

• Australian residents aged 18 to 65 years old

• Non-smoker

• No current diagnosis of serious chronic illness, e.g. autoimmune, cancer, cardiovascular, diabetes or primary psychiatric diseases

• Not pregnant or breastfeeding


This study involves:

• Donations of 84ml of blood

• Completion of an online questionnaire"

 

I don't think there's anything 'invalid' in what the Griffiths Uni team are doing - it's the way lots of chemical physiology has progressed, teasing apart one element at a time. With TRPICs there's a range of related functions, all of which may operate in different ways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_receptor_potential_channel#Families Certainly it's a labourious way of going about things which is why a lot is riding on Decode ME as possible means to shortcut what is otherwise a long hard slog.

 

It sounds like an interesting possibility to rule in or out—good luck to them. It'd be great to get a reasonably clear result in an ME research project, even if it's a negative that advances our knowledge of where not to look.

 

Which saves resources and lets them go to other projects. Most of the research is advance an idea, test it till it breaks, find a new idea. Eventually one wont break.