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Thank you, Jonathan. I have a follow up question. I am often faced with statements such as "there is no scientific basis at all for ME/CFS". I am aware of the fact that many biomedical studies are weak—Schutzer et al was the most recent bad surprise—and I agree that we have no knowledge of...

Link to study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3044169/

Abstract Background: Neurologic Post Treatment Lyme disease (nPTLS) and Chronic Fatigue (CFS) are syndromes of unknown etiology. They share features of fatigue and cognitive dysfunction, making it difficult to differentiate them. Unresolved is whether nPTLS is a subset of CFS. Methods and...

Interesting. The article talks about socially contingent factors that govern the social construction of medical knowledge, but what they really are investigating is the social construction of medical uncertainty. Neither neurasthenia nor ME/CFS is well understood, and in my view it is...

A paper by Jason's group states: "Only 13% of patients are able to maintain full-time employment, and 25% or more are confined to their homes (housebound) or completely bedbound." The Jason paper in turn quotes two other papers, but I don't have either of them. Jason paper: Pendergrast T, Brown...

Interesting. It is already well known that hemorrhagic fevers—the group of diseases that ebola belongs to—is a cause of post-viral fatigue syndrome.

Contradictory text. First, the author acknowledges that there are physiological abnormalities in the brain: "Over the past 10 years, neuroimaging research studies have consistently identified brain abnormalities in patients with medically unexplained symptoms—yes,biologically based changes in...

For crying out loud. Every single author is involved in neuro-linguistic programming or the Lightning Process. Shall we have a guess what the outcome will be? :wtf:

"The body responds to physics (kHz) in the same way as it responds to chemistry (medications) in that they are both capable of creating change within the body to improve health and well-being. Our internal processes are made up of physics, chemistry and biology so treatments using physics are...

An alternative to VPN is to use Google's DNS servers. If you have Windows, you can change the settings in the Control Panel. Use 8.8.8.8 as preferred DNS server and 8.8.4.4 as alternate DNS server. The details are described in...

It seems that Sci-hub is no longer available in Sweden. Elsevier sued several Internet Service Providers and demanded that Sci-hub be blocked, as they give access to copyright protected material. The site is now blocked, after a decision by the Patent and Market Supreme Court. However, I don’t...

I think we have to agree to disagree on this one. According to Wikipedia, “pathophysiology seeks to explain the functional changes that are occurring within an individual due to a disease or pathologic state”. Without an understanding of mechanisms and the role of observed abnormalities, I would...

CPET establishes that there are objectively measurable consequences of post-exertional malaise in ME/CFS, but the underlying process is still unknown. The same can be said about biomarkers or physiological abnormalities. Moreover, most of them have been observed on a group level, which means...

I agree with your main point that we don't know much about ME/CFS, we have no understanding of the underlying pathophysiological processes, and single studies are often hyped. However, I would like to think that some of the pilots have provided useful clues and hints—you quote some of them in...

Good point! I think it is a problem that many studies are hyped and that many advocates claim that some selected studies provide definite proof that ME/CFS is a somatic illness. However, I do think that pilot studies and reported abnormalities on a group level have some significance, even if we...

I'll settle for retirement. ;)

Thanks, @Carolyn Wilshire, for a nice blog and for participating in this very important debate. I think that the problem is bigger than just PACE or ME/CFS; it is about widespread bad research practices, in medical studies in general and in psychological studies in particular. It is always...

I think that we should be glad about the progress, but we must remember that much remains to be done: the results must be repeated in different cohorts (preferrably by other research groups), the specificity and sensitivity of the effect must be evaluated, and the researchers must eventually try...

Most of you have probably already seen these tweets, but I post them here for those of you who don't have Twitter or who missed them:

There was one study about proteomics in the cerebrospinal fluid. Professor Bergquist was a coauthor: Schutzer SE, Angel TE, Liu T, et al. Distinct Cerebrospinal Fluid Proteomes Differentiate Post-Treatment Lyme Disease from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. PLoS One. 2011;6(2):e17287. The article is...