Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) - discussion thread

[Jonathan Edwards]

think they may be using the term "inflammation" differently from you.

No doubt, most medical researchers do, and they are wrong because their terminology confuses different steps in a causal chain and thereby leads to nonsensical theories. I have seen it all my career.

 

[richie]

I understand what you are saying. People far better qualified than I would put a counter point. For my part all I would say is that consistency and clarity are important and you have shown both in your advocacy Sadly however, the use of the term inflammation is not being limited to the process you outline and that use will be what is in patient's minds. leading to confusion when they/we do not have your definition in mind. i don't want to labour this but do you have an example where mislabelling parts of the causal chain leads to nonsensical theories, excluding cases where meaning of inflammation is changed mid argument?

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

i don't want to labour this but do you have an example where mislabelling parts of the causal chain leads to nonsensical theories,

I can't think of a specific example, there are so many. We are constantly seeing abstracts claiming that ME?CFS is 'driven by neuroinflammation' or some such.

Inflammation is a bit like a traffic jam. It causes you to be late for your appointment but in itself is of no great predictive or explanatory interest. You always want to know why there was a traffic jam - road works or a rainstorm or a bank holiday or whatever. Inflammation does not drive anything. It is a downstream mediating stage.