CFS & fibromyalgia-like symptoms are an integral component of the phenome of schizophrenia: neuro-immune & opioid system correlates, 2020, Maes et al

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Dolphin

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Pre-print:
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202003.0432/v1



Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia-Like Symptoms Are an Integral Component of the Phenome of Schizophrenia: Neuro-Immune and Opioid System Correlates
Rana Fadhil Mousa , Hussein Kadhem Al-Hakeim , Amir Alhaidari , Michael Maes *

Version 1 : Received: 29 March 2020 / Approved: 29 March 2020 / Online: 29 March 2020 (10:52:40 CEST)

How to cite:
Mousa, R.F.; Al-Hakeim, H.K.; Alhaidari, A.; Maes, M. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia-Like Symptoms Are an Integral Component of the Phenome of Schizophrenia: Neuro-Immune and Opioid System Correlates. Preprints 2020, 2020030432 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202003.0432.v1). Mousa, R.F.; Al-Hakeim, H.K.; Alhaidari, A.; Maes, M. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia-Like Symptoms Are an Integral Component of the Phenome of Schizophrenia: Neuro-Immune and Opioid System Correlates. Preprints 2020, 2020030432 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202003.0432.v1).
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Abstract

Background:

Physiosomatic symptoms are an important part of schizophrenia phenomenology. The aim of this study is to examine the biomarker, neurocognitive and symptomatic correlates of physiosomatic symptoms in schizophrenia.

Methods:

We recruited 115 schizophrenia patients and 43 healthy controls and measured the Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Rating (FF) scale, schizophrenia symptom dimensions, and the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia. We measured neuro-immune markers including plasma CCL11 (eotaxin), interleukin-(IL)-6, IL-10, Dickkopf protein 1 (DKK1), high mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1) and endogenous opioid system (EOS) markers including κ-opioid receptor (KOR), µ-opioid receptor (MOR), endomorphin-2 (EM2) and β-endorphin.

Results:

Patients with an increased FF score display increased ratings of psychosis, hostility, excitement, formal though disorders, psychomotor retardation and negative symptoms as compared with patients with lower FF scores. A large part of the variance in the FF score (55.1%) is explained by the regression on digit sequencing task, token motor task, list learning, IL-10, age (all inversely) and IL-6 (positively). Neural network analysis shows that the top-6 predictors of the FF score are (in descending order): IL-6, HMGB1, education, MOR, KOR and IL-10. We found that 45.1% of the variance in a latent vector extracted from cognitive test scores, schizophrenia symptoms and the FF score was explained by HMGB-1, MOR, EM2, DKK1, and CCL11.

Conclusions:

FF symptoms are an integral part of the phenome of schizophrenia. Neurotoxic immune and neurodegenerative pathways and to a lesser extent the EOS appear to drive FF symptoms in schizophrenia.
Subject Areas
chronic fatigue syndrome; myalgic encephalomyelitis; schizophrenia; neuroimmunomodulation; inflammation; biomarkers
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From the paper:

Recent findings show that the phenome of schizophrenia not only comprises symptom domains such as psychosis, hostility, excitation, mannerism (PHEM), negative symptoms, psychomotor retardation and formal thought disorders, but also physiosomatic symptoms including chronic fatigue- and fibromyalgia-like symptoms (Kanchanatawan, Thika, et al., 2018).
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Which conveniently refers to this paper (of which Maes is also the author):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28666826

So the recent discovery of a connection between FM, chronic fatigue is down to Maes.

I know nothing of course but it smells of desperation to me.

Maes continues to cite papers (the more recent ones) of which he is also the author without citing his name in the citation. Not sure what that's about.
 
Breaking news: unreliable questionnaires produce unreliable results. More research is needed to produce more misleading results.

There are so many issues here. Either psychiatry has completely missed out on huge aspects of schizophrenia that it's just coming around to look at, or those questionnaires are completely unreliable. Maybe it's both, though. Quite possible. We know that it's common even for specialists in non-controversial diseases to completely miss out on the illness side because they only value the disease, the measurable, what affects short-term survival. But we also know that those questionnaires are terrible at telling anything.

Evidence suggests nobody has any idea what schizophrenia is. It seems very superficially defined and very vague. Is any part of psychiatry validated at all? Seriously it appears to be a total crapshoot.

The questionnaire appears to be particularly lousy, if that's the one: http://oml.eular.org/sysModules/obxOml/docs/ID_20/Zachrisson, O., B. Regland, et al. (2002).pdf. It would likely produce the same results for completely different circumstances. Basically 0-6 on those items:
1. Aches and pain
2. Muscular tension
3. Fatigue
4. Concentration difficulties
5. Failing memory
6. Irritability
7. Sadness
8. Sleep disturbances
9. Autonomic disturbances
10. Irritable bowel
11. Headache
12. Subjective experience of infection
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At least the topics are relevant but the scale and framing makes it very difficult to interpret.
 
Maes seemed to be a supporter of ME. I checked the list of his papers in MEpedia. I did not look at them closely, but the ones I remember which were about why CBT is useless and immune problems in ME were all dated before 2015 when he developed his theory of Neuro-Inflammatory and Oxidative Fatigue

"2015, A new case definition of Neuro-Inflammatory and Oxidative Fatigue (NIOF), a neuroprogressive disorder, formerly known as chronic fatigue syndrome or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: results of multivariate pattern recognition methods and external validation by neuro-immune biomarkers"

This paper uses
Dolphin said:
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia-Like Symptoms
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So it looks as if he is finding things in schizophrenia that resemble his theory of ME which is very different from ME and schizophrenia being related diseases. Sharing symptoms does not mean anything much, the same one can be the primary disease or a downstream effect.
 
No idea about this article but, this guy has 3 affiliations in 3 continents, yet he has a hotmail account as his email account? He is not listed as faculty in Plovdiv. Can’t find him at Deakin. Can’t find him at Chulalongkorn U either.

and he titles himself

Prof. Dr. Michael Maes, M.D., Ph.D.

At least he didn’t title himself His Royal Highness

Corresponding Author: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
e Department of Psychiatry, Medical University of Plovdiv, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
f School of Medicine, IMPACT Strategic Research Centre, Deakin University, PO Box 281, Geelong, VIC, 3220, Australia. E-mail: dr.michaelmaes@hotmail.com.
Corresponding author:
Prof. Dr. Michael Maes, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry
King Chulalongkorn memorial Hospital Faculty of Medicine
dr.michaelmaes@hotmail.com
 
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