Chronic muscle weakness and mitochondrial dysfunction in the absence of sustained atrophy in a preclinical sepsis model, 2019, Owen et al

Open access, https://elifesciences.org/articles/49920

 

Interesting, especially as my ‘relapse’ (after a Consultant diagnosed ‘Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome’ in 2001 and ‘recovery’ to 95% by 2005) was caused by Sepsis in 2013.

Although in 2013 my GP (UK- NICE Guidelines) diagnosed ‘CFS’ and the Clinic diagnosed ‘CFS/ME’, I call myself ’disabled by M.E.’ and am a participant in one of the UK ME/CFS Biobank studies.

Both in 2001 and since 2013, I have had the classic fluctuating M.E. symptoms of delayed PEM, brain fog, sore throats, severe muscle pain, fatigue (in all, 50/58 symptoms on the Cure ME Symptom Assessment).

This Paper:

Reviewer #2 within the ’Decision Letter’ states:

” (The authors).....demonstrate reduced mitochondrial respiration, ultra-structural defects, reduced mitochondrial enzymatic activity, and evidence of oxidative damage. This suggests the proximal cause of muscle weakness is mitochondrial dysfunction. All of this is a reasonable explanation for the sustained muscle dysfunction”

and

“This is a suggestion and a hope:

6) An -omics approach of any sort – shotgun or targeted proteomics, RNAseq, etc. – could point to possible specific mechanisms dysregulating the mitochondria, would strengthen the impact and, if reported and deposited to GEO, would be a substantial contribution to the field. Such a contribution likely would enable others to query pathways of interest and thus would spark additional research using this model specifically and also more generally in the arena of sepsis-related muscle weakness/wasting.”

As a person with no Science brain, even before illness/disability, I have no idea what can be deduced from the above study but I just wanted to confirm that symptoms (muscle weakness/air hunger) mentioned in it, sound about right to me. However, this study has not investigated any humans.