Making Invisible Illnesses Visible: Recognizing and Responding to Infection Associated Chronic Conditions 2026 Iskander and Haridopolos

[Utsikt]

Well here's my proposed study, but for other theories, you could use a prospective design like this to try to study what (potentially time sensitive) predisposing factors make someone more likely to develop ME/CFS following a potentially triggering event vs. people undergoing the event who do not develop ME/CFS.

I’m not sure I’d classify that as unique, but I understand what you’re thinking.

I found this study that assessed the rate of new onset insomnia and sleep apnea in relation to deployment in the entire US army:

Table 3 presents the multivariable (adjusted) analyses examining associations between sleep disorders and covariates for both the entire cohort of soldiers and the deployed soldier cohort.

In the entire population, insomnia and SA risk was higher among deployed soldiers compared to those who did not deploy; however, risk of both disorders decreased the longer a soldier was deployed.

Risk of insomnia was lower among those deployed for >30months compared to those who never deployed; risk of SA was lower among soldiers deployed ≥21months compared to those who never deployed. Among deployed soldiers, risk of both sleep disorders decreased as deployment time increased.

Combat exposure (defined as “feeling in great danger of being killed”) was associated with increased risk of insomnia, but not with increased risk of SA.

In the entire cohort, as the number of comorbidities at any time increased, so did the risk for both sleep disorders. Among deployed soldiers, increased predeployment comorbidities was associated with decreased risk of both sleep disorders, but as postdeployment comorbidities increased the risk of both sleep disorders also increased.

https://www.sleephealthjournal.org/article/S2352-7218(24)00210-9/fulltext

 

[duncan]

I think part of the problem may be that a lot of people assume that there must be a trigger. Pe

This.

 

[duncan]

I think it easier to write of a triggering event for PEM, than for ME/CFS. Sorry if that's obvious.

 

[nataliezzz]

I’m not sure I’d classify that as unique, but I understand what you’re thinking.

I guess it's just a unique opportunity in the sense that it's very difficult to study people right before they develop an infection since that's unpredictable, so if there are important predisposing time sensitive factors at the time of triggering event, a study design like this might actually be able to capture them. Though no matter what the cause is, there's probably some element of randomness (stochasticity? lol) to it.

I found this study that assessed the rate of new onset insomnia and sleep apnea in relation to deployment in the entire US army:

https://www.sleephealthjournal.org/article/S2352-7218(24)00210-9/fulltext

Thank you for sharing! I'll definitely check it out.