Let's assume that the EU decides to make €2 million available for ME/CFS research and projects. What would be the best way to spend this money?
Establishing what over exertion looks like biologically in healthy people so that we can then compare this to what over exertion looks like biologically in patients. As far as I can tell, science doesn't seem to have done this deep analysis of the changes brought about in healthy people by over exertion that is needed as a baseline.
Haven't sports science people done some of that. I do remember hearing a discussion of how training regimes have changed so athletes don't push themselves to far, but that may have just been to prevent injury. Isn't there something like 'overexercising syndrome'?
Here is the Wikipedia article for Overtraining, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtraining Obviously take what is written with a pinch of salt but detail on cause and mechanism seem more than sparse to me. Going by Wikipedia there wouldn't seem to be anything certain about overtraining. Perhaps @PhysiosforME can confirm or deny that for us?
I agree, overtraining is potentially an interesting area. There are some very good sports scientists at Loughborough University, who probably know as much as anyone about it. Personally, I'd like to see some strategic thinking about what research avenues look most promising, work on how to agree a diagnostic assessment, and some focus on epidemiology. You wouldn't get much of that for two million Euros, but you could put the bones in place.
. From what you hear on the Tour de France commentary the sports science people seem to have a lot of information about how the body uses energy. In some stages of the tour certain team mates deliberately push past what they would be able to sustain and then drop out of the lead having positioned their team mate for the final stretch.