News From Jarred Younger / Neuroinflammation, Pain, and Fatigue Laboratory at UAB, From Aug 2020

Thanks for highlighting that!

ETA - If he is requiring PEM in all patients, he will hopefully update the info in clinicaltrials.gov. On the other hand, if he is using Fukuda, hopefully he will subset out on those with PEM versus not and report those separately

 

Sorry I mistyped, he said "ME/CFS patient" not CFS. My mistake, sorry!

 

I can't quote him exactly, but he mentioned starting with well-characterised patients with no potentially confounding diagnoses. From what I understand, there's a fair bit riding on this experiment for one of his hypotheses about ME and he'll only be able to scan so many people at this stage, so he's likely to go for clear cases.

Hopefully it'll either show something is going on or be clearly negative. That's probably optimistic, given how confusing most results seem to be, but we can hope!

 

@5:18 He states that almost all his Fibromyalgia patients met the criteria for CFS which I strongly doubt since Fibromyalgia patients tend to report improving from light exercise where as ME patients deteriorate. See:

Code:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Fibromyalgia/comments/174ur61/the_pain_is_different_with_exercise/

 

I see a crapton of people with FM, and on this sub, reporting PEM. We're mostly stuck with diagnoses based largely on what individual MDs fancy or happen to believe in, rather than what the patients are actually reporting. It's impossible to say what is valid and what isn't in terms of differences. Plenty of long haulers are also diagnosed with FM. It's a huge mess.

 

"Here is a quick update about my efforts to test dextronaltrexone in chronic pain, fatigue, and cognitive disorders related to brain inflammation. This substance has never been trialed in humans, and I want to tell you why it needs to be prioritized. - Jarred Younger"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2SYjG6jM5k

 

I added a page to MEpedia for Dextro-naltrexone, basically summarizing what he said in the video.

 

It seems like he might use a modified Fukuda in his studies which requires PEM.

This 2019 study from his lab says "participants with ME/CFS had to meet the following inclusion criteria: (i) age between 18–55 years; (ii) met Fukuda case definition criteria for ME/CFS (Fukuda et al., 1994), without the Reeves et al. (2005) modifications but with additional criteria proposed by Jason et al. (2010);".

And that Jason et al. paper gives an ME/CFS criteria whose second requirement is:

"Post-exertional malaise and/ or post-exertional fatigue. With activity (it need not be strenuous and may include walking up a flight of stairs,
using a computer, or reading a book), there must be a loss of physical or mental stamina, rapid/sudden muscle or cognitive fatigability, post-
exertional malaise and/or fatigue and a tendency for other associated symptoms within the patient’s cluster of symptoms to worsen. The
recovery is slow, often taking 2-24 hours or longer."

 

"I believe microglia are the primary culprit behind fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, Gulf War Illness, Long-COVID, and other chronic pain and fatigue disorders. Here is a quick video on what I am trying to do to fix the problem. - Jarred Younger"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XggO__DlALw

 

"Pathogens, environmental exposures, medications, and your physical and mental states are all potential sensitizers of microglia. In this video, I cover the most likely triggers of chronic brain inflammation. - Jarred Younger"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpDGycK3zhA

 

"A new study suggests that fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) can significantly reduce fibromyalgia pain, fatigue, and mood problems. I want to share what I think about the study, and what needs to happen next. The link to the paper is below. I don't think the complete paper is open-access, but if you search the title with Google, you may find it posted somewhere. - Jarred Younger

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38663650/ "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dMXiLTx0nk

 

Link to S4ME thread on paper

----

Younger also mentioned that a group in the UK is planning a study testing FMT in ME/CFS. I couldn't find it in the UK trial registry (don't know how comprehensive that is compared to the US registry) but SolveME's site has a
page about it:

 

"Hello everyone! I'm busy wrapping up a grant application and just wanted to give a quick update on my remote clinical trials. Next week I will be presenting a new treatment approach for chronic pain, headaches, and anxiety. - Jarred Younger"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwM1GW_R7Ew

 

"Daily green light treatment may reduce fibromyalgia pain by 50%. I'll cover that research and let you know what I think about the approach. The published report is at the link below. - Jarred Younger

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7861466/ "

"Here is a Health Rising article by Cort Johnson if you want some more background info on green light phototherapy: https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2...herapy-fibromyalgia-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/ "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7drFS-3Grg

 

Ahem.

I'd place bets that people get better results from actually being in natural green environments rather than a green light (will make money for someone) therapy, but I may be prejudiced.

My medical reporter father hid in a garbage can in the 1950s at a chiropractic convention where red light was the promoted miracle cure.

 

This guy…..

 

"My clinical research shows that stinging nettle may reduce widespread musculoskeletal pain. I will cover in this talk whether it is worth trying. If you want to see the original study, click on one of the open-access links at the page below. - Jarred Younger

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33915962/ "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgvxljIy_j0

 

Sorry @mango for taking your video posting job this week!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vePEtCKjkfA

AI generated summary:

"The video discusses the lab's top 8 research priorities for the second half of 2024:

1. Botanical trial for Gulf War Illness:
- Remote trial looking at curcumin, stinging nettle, and R-lipoic acid
- Open to participants from anywhere in the US
- About halfway through the trial, laying groundwork for future remote trials

2. Zirconium-89 oxine PET study:
- Tracks leukocytes infiltrating the brain and causing inflammation
- Done in collaboration with Jonathan McConathy and Suzanne Lapi
- Healthy controls completed, starting to run ME/CFS patients

3. DPA-714 PET study:
- Shows when microglia in the brain are activated and inflamed
- Aims to determine if ME/CFS patients have inflamed brains
- ME/CFS patients completed, 4-5 healthy controls left
- Funded by NIH

4. Brain inflammation MRI study:
- Looks at brain temperature and lactate as signs of inflammation
- Almost done, trying to finish in second half of 2024
- Also NIH funded

5. Psilocybin for fibromyalgia pain clinical trial:
- Giving macro doses of psilocybin to fibromyalgia patients
- Investigating if it changes serotonergic systems to reduce pain
- Most will run in second half of 2024

6. Weather and pollutant effects on ME/CFS study:
- By graduate student Chloe Jones
- Correlates daily fatigue ratings with weather/pollutant data
- Preliminary results show some variables fluctuate with good/bad days

7. Developing dextro-naltrexone:
- Aim to create more powerful version of low-dose naltrexone
- Hoping to start the project this year
- Complicated as never used in humans before

8. Whole genome sequencing for ME/CFS:
- Run by Liz Worthey and Camille Birch, funded by Solve ME
- Identifies genetic variants likely driving a patient's primary symptoms
- First project finished, pending peer review, likely published by end of year
- Hope to eventually offer to anyone with mysterious pain/fatigue/cognitive issues"

 

All good! I'm a big fan of teamwork, thank you! (It's just one of those things that seems to randomly have turned into a kind of habit, unintentionally. No attachment whatsoever, though! )