Portugal: 1st International Conference on Clinical and Scientific Advances in ME/CFS and Long COVID, 3rd & 4th April, 2024

https://conferencia-emsfc-pos-covid.pt/

The 1st International Conference on Clinical and Scientific Advances in ME/CFS and Long COVID aims to raise awareness, clarify misconceptions, promote understanding, and stimulate discussion among healthcare professionals, investigators, policymakers, patients, and community representatives on the clinical manifestations, management, therapeutic options, and health challenges related to Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and Long COVID.

The incidence of ME/CFS continues to rise globally, in the aftermath of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections and Long COVID, further underscoring the need for informed diagnosis and treatment. Emerging evidence underscores many shared underlying biological abnormalities and symptoms reported in both illnesses, documented by multiple laboratories. This underscores the importance of sustained medical education and regular updates on research, diagnostic, and treatment guidelines.

The program will feature state-of-the-art lectures, and interactive sessions designed to address the educational needs of Portuguese healthcare professionals and health system capacity. It offers dedicated time for discussions to enhance knowledge exchange and reinforce the implementation of guidelines and recommendations.

The conference will take place on April 3 and 4, 2024, in Lisbon, at the premises of FLAD – Luso-American Development Foundation. You can attend in person (places are limited) or participate online via streaming.

 

I lived in Portugal 6 years ago, and back then there was almost no awareness of ME. It’s amazing to see this happen there. One of my doctors there who I saw for another reason apart from ME, is listed on the advisory committee. He’s pretty high profile and well known in Portugal, very vocal on medical issues in media, so this to me says that Portugal is taking ME seriously. I think long Covid is the catalyst for this change.

https://conferencia-emsfc-pos-covid.pt/committees/#national

 

Speakers include Unger, Systrom, Bateman, Ed Yong, Lacerda, Bergquist, Hanson, and Scheibenbogen amongst others.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hkgywds4f0

Video less than 2 minutes

 

@patientled on Twitter are tweeting on it.

 

This hashtag can help find posts #MeLcFladLisbon

 

Day 1, Apr 3rd video is on YouTube here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PbNDravVmM

And this is day 2, Apr 4th video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M2b63pEZ2g

 

INteresting slide from video 2. Via an American researcher called Singh who works in concert with David Systrom. They made two subgroups out of their long covid patients: those who delivered oxygen well and those who didn't. They were able to find the ones who did well had some compensatory proteins expressed that improved mitochondiral function.

 

Another interesting slide from the same talk, 1h24 mark.


Seems to show that a rise in succinate during exercise correlates with mild mecfs.

germain Hanson et al 2022 found that patient succinate levels rose less than controls, on average. However they were equivalent before exercise.




Succinate is just upstream of fumarate in the tca cycle. levels of fumarate tended to rise slightly in patients after exercise. it's a clue of some kind!

 

Lipkin reported elevated succinate.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.14.21258895v2

And so did this Long Covid study (figure 2)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/all.15253

 

ME Research UK

Last week, ME Research UK attended, virtually, the “1st International Conference on Clinical and Scientific Advances in ME/CFS and Long COVID”. The 2-day conference, held in Portugal, included talks from established ME/CFS researchers (several of whom have previously received funding from ME Research UK) and early career researchers. The presentations and discussions were informative and covered a wide range of topics.

Read our general overview of the key themes of the conference: https://tinyurl.com/5n9asbew
This will be followed up by more detailed insights about the conference topics.