Article: Fibro Fog and ME/CFS Brain Fog

https://www.verywellhealth.com/brain-fibro-fog-causes-symptoms-possible-treatment-716014

 

Not a big fan of Michael Mosley but watched this last night and found some of it interesting (he uses 'brain fog' a lot).

How to Sleep Well with Michael Mosley

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015y9l

 

The worry is that no matter how not very far along research has got on these 2 areas, the punchline for such things always ends up with definitive suggestions for sleep hygeine and CBT being 'the answer'

I say that knowing that getting people to understand ME/CFS is different to the collection of symptoms if they were separate to said condition is impossible and made more so when programmes like this encourage the opposite whether inadvertent or not.

Any clue on whether that is what was suggested in the programme?

 

I seem to recall Michael Mosley recommending consuming beetroot juice to 'boost' your brain cognition.

 

Oh, well, if this article says so I guess it must be true. Something that has stumped medicine for decades, even right now brain fog is a major issue with Long Covid, and this person has it all figured out. Damn. Must be wicked smart and everyone else is dumb for missing this simple but wrong explanation.

 

THIS is great to see. Probably the first article (certainly in a long time) that seems to be written by someone who knows what they are talking about. Would like to see this shared by MEA and other sources

It also brings up the need for us to push towards getting scientific parts of psychology (individuals who have not been involved with the BPS research in past) to take over this side of things from clinical wrt research as well as treatment. Flags me back to the question (I think there was more than one) asked a while back about whether psychology involvement from scientific/non-clinical could find a way forward on cognitive-related measuring etc. on here a number of months back.

This is scientific psychology (different to clinical, which seems to have lost its way in bothering to understand the intricacies of a condition or how it might be different to a generic term in its haste to dump under lowest common denominator 'we have one treatment to offer' approach). It is also cognitive psychology within it of the factual accuracy I'm used to.

e.g.
"Some ME/CFS brain fog research has pointed to problems with several other types of memory. These include:4

• Visuospatial memory: Deals with perceptions of your orientation in space (where you are in relation to other objects) and the ability to navigate (get from one place to another).8
• Episodic verbal memory: A component of long-term memory that involves remembering and recalling what someone said.9
• Visual memory: The ability to remember things you've seen.10"

I've always been puzzled by the fact anyone can talk on memory (e.g. "it affects memory") without defining which one - and then claim to treat 'memory' (these systems are all rather different psychologically and the processes involved, and in healthy people vary in strength across individuals ie one person could have good one of these and bad another one).

It shows how rifted off its proper subject clinical psych has become (is it now sitting under psychiatry, the area that scientific psychology was apparently set-up to oversight and test the rigour of) that it does none of these distinctions or tests for them when focusing on generic descriptions of a condition in order to 'test' the treatment it wants to use?

 

Interesting - I seem to recall something like that being used for something else in either the same series or something very much like it for something like recovery or hydration after exercise? And it talking about nitrates or something being the reason for its choice? I've found this but no idea if it is new content I've inadvertently mistaken for old as it isn't dated, and I don't have the energy to go through the episode links and see which it relates to: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/ar...06C1BC/can-beetroot-boost-your-brain-and-body

 

It seems to do a better job than most and is much more specific to the type of things found in ME/CFS that 'come under that mileu' rather than trying to claim 'a lumped entity of brain fog' - giving it the grace that noone is perhaps positioned to yet 'pull it all together' (different patterns of issue to different causes etc) - in at least it goes through an names all the different types of functions and makes them distinct and well-described (e.g. the different memory, attention etc processes and factors influencing them)

Its list of theories of causes isn't too generically presumptive either, and would be an improvement on most I've seen:

"Researchers have a lot of theories about things that may contribute to fibro fog and ME/CFS brain fog, including:

• Pockets of inflammation in the brain23
• Sleep that isn't restful or restorative24
• Mental distraction due to pain and/or fatigue25
• Overexertion in ME/CFS as a consequence of post-exertional malaise26
• Medications for fibromyalgia and ME/CFS27
• Low blood flow to areas of the brain related to attention28
• Abnormal connectivity patterns between different regions of the brain29
• Abnormal function of certain brain chemicals (neurotransmitters)30
• Premature aging of the brain (loss of gray matter volume)29
• Comorbid depression11"

 

"For exercise, our results indicate that eating a high-nitrate vegetable meal before exercise reduces the effort required, so it might make people more inclined to exercise. It would suggest that the physical tasks of daily living, such as climbing stairs or walking to the local shops, would feel a little less tiring after eating a high-nitrate vegetable meal.

When it came to mental benefits, our results suggested that high-nitrate vegetables did not make any difference to mental performance in situations where people are at rest, but did appear to help maintain mental sharpness following exercise".

That looks like the episode I watched several years ago.

I was a big juicer fan back in the mid 90s and drank plenty of beetroot juice. I can't say I felt any benefits.

My diabetic friend drinks tart cherry juice for gout. He say it helps.