Replicated blood-based biomarkers for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis not explicable by inactivity, 2024, Beentjes, Ponting et al

Carson gets almost everything wrong. He seems to be most annoyed by the idea that psychiatriy is being slighted.

It is a pity that there was any mention of diagnostic tests really. That is not what this sort of research should aim for. But Carson doesn't even get the history of the biology right.

I agree with Initial Conditions that this is not a paper to make a song and dance about. It probably provides some useful information on what matters when selecting cohorts but I don't see lipid abnormalities providing a major lead.
 
postviral?1971 said:
Chris Ponting was on BBC news today around 7.30 a.m. although the Science Media Centre preceded him. I didn't hear the full interview, unfortunately.
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Comment about it on X

"Frustrating the Radio 4 Today team consulted the Science Media Centre for the piece on a blood test for ME. The Science Media Centre’s behavioural beliefs about ME have been debunked so many times it is incredible anyone still talks to them."

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Nightsong said:
I also don't see any significant overlaps with the results in Pu et al. - has Carson even skimmed through either paper, or is he just winging it?
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My impression was that he wasn't saying the specific findings overlapped so much as saying that analyzing blood from those suffering from mental/emotional disorders, in this case depression, can simillarly yield biological markers.
 
Hutan said:
Chris did very well, some great responses to questions that weren't particularly helpful from the reviewer.
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Yes, I thought the interviewer, Nick Robinson, was poor and clearly under the influence of the SMC. Hard to know how best to respond to those sort of questions but perhaps a good rehearsal for when the DecodeME results are published. I agree that Chris did well by largely ignoring the questions and talking about the study. However, I think it would be worth spending some time working out how best to respond to that type of questioning (eg Are you claiming this proves it’s not all in the head? … It’s a combination of physical and mental, isn’t it?) when put on the spot on live TV or radio. Chris’s strategy may have been right but I would be inclined to point out, as politely as possible, that they are not very useful or scientific questions. Are Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, brain cancer, schizophrenia or autism “all in the head” or a combination of mental and physical? What about autoimmune diseases or auto-inflammatory disorders? What we know from the data is that the psycho-behavioural therapies that have been prescribed for ME/CFS for more than 30 years are ineffective and harmful. What we need to understand are the biological causes and mechanisms of ME/CFS in order to develop effective treatments. This study is a small step towards such understanding. The hope is that DecodeME will be a giant leap.

Huge thanks to Chris and his colleagues for all their great work.
 
Robert 1973 said:
Yes, I thought the interviewer, Nick Robinson, was poor and clearly under the influence of the SMC. Hard to know how best to respond to those sort of questions but perhaps a good rehearsal for when the DecodeME results are published. I agree that Chris did well by largely ignoring the questions and talking about the study. However, I think it would be worth spending some time working out how best to respond to that type of questioning (eg Are you claiming this proves it’s not all in the head? … It’s a combination of physical and mental, isn’t it?) when put on the spot on live TV or radio. Chris’s strategy may have been right but I would be inclined to point out, as politely as possible, that they are not very useful or scientific questions. Are Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, brain cancer, schizophrenia or autism “all in the head” or a combination of mental and physical? What about autoimmune diseases or auto-inflammatory disorders? What we know from the data is that the psycho-behavioural therapies that have been prescribed for ME/CFS for more than 30 years are ineffective and harmful. What we need to understand are the biological causes and mechanisms of ME/CFS in order to develop effective treatments. This study is a small step towards such understanding. The hope is that DecodeME will be a giant leap.

Huge thanks to Chris and his colleagues for all their great work.
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The thing is that every minute matters so by drawing into that nonsense the risk is it opens up more etc

I’ll have a listen but will be intrigued to hear what laypersons might see of an interviewer effectively showing their hand if they are keeping asking something which the study isn’t about and is some side debate - it would be different if it was that there was eg some massive flaw in the method that was being ducked like when politicians sidestep the direct question but maybe the ‘are you sure it’s not all in the head’ type stuff actually comes across to most people like grammatically nitpicking at best. Or very strange to the point of holding an interest even.

Whilst lots of people might have all sorts of dodgy ideas of what cfs is it’s mainly those in certain bubbles or doctors on comments sections and certain circles that genuinely think that dualist blather (that is sold as an inversion of meaning) is of relevance when a medical illness has a new biomedical discovery.

To not entertain changing the topic might look less like avoidance and more like not taking the bait
 
Robert 1973 said:
Yes, I thought the interviewer, Nick Robinson, was poor and clearly under the influence of the SMC.
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I agree it was poor, but I suspect Nick Robinson just read out whatever the ediitors put in front of him. They do a 3 hour news program with 2 presenters and lots of interviews on anything and everything, but mostly politics and current affairs, it's not a science or medicine program. I doubt he had time to read or think about the subject. It's the editors I blame. They should have realised the SMC comment was nonsensical. Or better still the BBC should employ more editors with scientific understanding, and stop just parroting whatever nonsense the SMC feed them.
 
Trish said:
I agree it was poor, but I suspect Nick Robinson just read out whatever the ediitors put in front of him. They do a 3 hour news program with 2 presenters and lots of interviews on anything and everything, but mostly politics and current affairs, it's not a science or medicine program. I doubt he had time to read or think about the subject. It's the editors I blame. They should have realised the SMC comment was nonsensical. Or better still the BBC should employ more editors with scientific understanding, and stop just parroting whatever nonsense the SMC feed them.
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The SMC has had deep access to the BBC since the 1980s, its tendrils are influencing everything across the entire organisation. Its set the default understanding for the disease and thus their viewpoint forms the basis of everything the BBC does, their "experts" on the condition will be SMC trained and it will get into the scripts. The entire organisation is running on SMC misinformation.
 
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Re Carson: what puzzles me is why he is seen as an expert on ME/CFS. The only relevant link seems to be that, according to Carson's declared interests on the SMC's website he "led writing of the Scottish Good Practice Statement in ME/CFS in 2008" - but how did he manage to get involved in leading that? Searching PubMed for 'Carson A[Author] AND "chronic fatigue syndrome"' gives me two results: the Anomalies paper, and as a co-author on a paper about brain fog (link) so it is not as if he has a relevant publication record.

The picture that emerges from the blood chemistry - (high TyG, high TG/HDL ratio, elevated glucose & HbA1c & ALP) - I do wonder if BMI may not be an ideal metric to use to assess adiposity (waist-hip ratio, perhaps?), and given the results from the other recent Edinburgh paper many of the UK Biobank self-reported lifetime CFS cases are undoubtedly not ME/CFS.

I don't see why ME/CFS should be categorised as neuropsychiatric. Neuropsychiatric disorders surely should involve a disturbance of mood, perception or behaviour and there is no evidence for any such disturbance as being intrinsic to ME/CFS. Brain fog is a transdiagnostic symptom that can be e.g. a sequel of chemotherapy.

Also, some disorders that are widely thought to be purely "all in the head" may not be - anorexia nervosa seems to be widely thought to be a mixture of psychiatric & psychological, and historically it was considered a purely hysterical disorder (once being called anorexia hysterica or apepsia hysterica) - yet a GWAS reported in 2019 (link) showed a metabolic component - unfortunately such findings do not seem to have produced much in the way of follow-up research.
 
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Nightsong said:
Re Carson: what puzzles me is why he is seen as an expert on ME/CFS.
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Isn't it just that Carson had a link with Sharpe and subsequently became 'our man in Scotland' for the broader BPS community. SMC cliques are fairly narrow it seems and I suspect do not follow any particular expertise.

Nightsong said:
I don't see why ME/CFS should be categorised as neuropsychiatric. Neuropsychiatric disorders surely should involve a disturbance of mood, perception or behaviour and there is no evidence for any such disturbance as being intrinsic to ME/CFS. Brain fog is a transdiagnostic symptom that can be e.g. a sequel of chemotherapy.
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I am not proposing to 'categorise ME/CFS as neuropsychiatric'. But I think brain fog and possibly other fatures can reasonably be seen as neuropsychiatric effects of whatever is at the root of it. Neuropsychiatric effects of drugs include confusion, memory change, changes in perception. Pain and fatigue may be 'changes in perception' due to chemicals interfering with signal pathways.

For chemotherapy I think brain fog could reasonably be called an adverse neuropsychiatric effect.
 
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Jonathan Edwards said:
Isn't it just that Carson had a link with Sharpe and subsequently became 'our man in Scotland' for the broader BPS community.
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yes, he and Stone were students of Sharpe. in the SMC's mind, they're essentially interchangeable as experts. Stone was asked to comment on the Wilshire et al PACE reanalysis. The SMC has shifted slightly since the PACE days. Now they'll always have at least one of the ideologues, but they also seem to recognize they can't leave it at that and also need to include someone else reasonable.
 
I find it fascinating that two of the three main biological findings in this paper are the same as highlighted by Neil McGregor in his 2019 OMF /Emerge presentations.
1. Altered Glucose repsonse / Insulin response
2. Liver changes.

Even more interesting is that for (1) they used completely different techniques. McGregor reported that the altered glucose response followed two differing patterns in ME/CFS and both were different from typical disease patterns. The paper of this thread used inferred markers such as ALT. Perhaps these findings are worth revisiting and digging deeper. The Australian study was a well powered study on Glucose response!

Thread : Video, Emerge Symposium 2019: Dr Neil McGregor, An Omic Analysis of ME/CFS – an Assessment of Potential Mechanisms

Healthrising blog on topic
 
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