Do you believe that “viral persistence” is the cause of ongoing MECFS and LC?

From a conversation between John Chia and Amy Proal a couple years ago, he discusses finding it in the gut, and that even knowing where to look, it's hard to detect:

 

So then do you think the reason for fatigue in sickness behavior is not the body's attempt at energy conservation/redirecting energy? That it's mostly something else like the virus directly causing fatigue, or the body making one tired to prevent infecting others? Or you just haven't seen good evidence either way?

 

Nobody has any way of knowing I suspect. But considering the evolutionary pressures that might make a sickness response useful my guess would be that if you have active infection it is a good idea to curl up in a cave and wait for the immune system to do its work rather than trying to hunt for some more food simply because you would be exposing yourself to dangers while functioning poorly. As much as anything it might be a way of making sure you and your family do not eat any more of that rotten meat.

A major part of the sickness response is stopping eating, so it is hard to argue that it is there to make sure energy is available. Energy intake is shut down.

 

There are most likely some pwME who are infected with enterovirus. I would imagine that they would need many tissue samples in various areas of the gut to detect it.

Have you seen the discussions on this thread

 

I assumed digestion costs significantly more available energy per ATP produced than using fat reserves, so the body might switch to the cheaper ATP for a short time. I'm not finding research about relative energy costs, though...

 

Interesting, although in that quote he cites his study that didn't find viruses. But as the researchers above are saying, it's likely if there are viruses, it'll require deeper searchers and improved techniques to find them.

 

I suspect that there are, at least in some pwME, multiple pathogens (viral, bacterial and/or parasites) simultaneously at play. It may be a crap shoot trying to figure which one, or which combination, cause symptom persistence since diagnostics can be wholly inadequate.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1846675566184771746


Dr. Maayan Levy joins the Arc Institute as an Innovation Investigator, with a Stanford Pathology appointment expected in January 2025. Her work on viral persistence and serotonin reduction in #LongCovid remains highly impactful.

probably goes under the Arc thread.

 

Lots of people with ME/CFS get sore throats, right? I do. Sometimes immediately after hours of continuous computer use. And sometimes upon waking up after too much physical activity the previous day.

Is this potentially a good location to look for viruses?

StatPearls: Pharyngitis, 2023, Wolford et al

So given a sore throat in someone in the general population, the most likely cause is a virus. Maybe doesn't translate to ME/CFS. But maybe it does.

And if a virus is the cause, there's a good chance the virus is in the throat itself.

Maybe a sore throat is a rare time that a persistent virus comes to an easily accessible location, and can be detected with a throat swab. (Or maybe biopsy, but that sounds very invasive and unpleasant.)

If a study finds that throat cultures of people with ME/CFS show higher viral levels after exercise, this might be useful for PEM and viral persistence research.