ME/CFS Skeptic
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
There was this interesting bit about the intramural study with Brian Wallit. He reported only 3 out of 22 ME/CFS being excluded because they found another, rare disorder. One patient had rare cancer, one atypical myositis, and one parkinsonism.
But then he showed that the healthy controls had a similar amount of exclusions. People weren't as healthy as they thought they were. Unfortunately, I don't have the slide but I think they found things like early cancer and signs of Alzheimer.
So if these figures are correct, then the report of many ME/CFS patients who turn out to have a rare disorder should be taken with a grain of salt. Instead of ME/CFS being a label for many undiagnosed rare disorders, these figures suggest the NIH researchers are simply really good at finding health problems - they even find them in patients who think they are healthy!
Also: the short illness duration (max 5 years) might increase the chance of finding an illness other than ME/CFS. Wallit mentioned that the patient with rare cancer has passed away. So these figures might not apply to patients with longer illness duration.
But then he showed that the healthy controls had a similar amount of exclusions. People weren't as healthy as they thought they were. Unfortunately, I don't have the slide but I think they found things like early cancer and signs of Alzheimer.
So if these figures are correct, then the report of many ME/CFS patients who turn out to have a rare disorder should be taken with a grain of salt. Instead of ME/CFS being a label for many undiagnosed rare disorders, these figures suggest the NIH researchers are simply really good at finding health problems - they even find them in patients who think they are healthy!
Also: the short illness duration (max 5 years) might increase the chance of finding an illness other than ME/CFS. Wallit mentioned that the patient with rare cancer has passed away. So these figures might not apply to patients with longer illness duration.