Circulating leptin levels in patients with [ME], [CFS] or fibromyalgia a systematic review protocol, 2020, Musker et al

Michael Musker and colleague Tiffany Gill have written an article about their research for The Conversation

Explainer: what is fibromyalgia, the condition Lady Gaga lives with?

It is about fibromyalgia, but the article ends with:

Many of the symptoms of fibromyalgia can be found in people who have a condition known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome. Our research is currently looking at the blood of people with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome to see if there are specific inflammatory markers that may help us understand how these illnesses develop.

If we can understand the interaction of the immune system with pain and inflammation, then we can begin to target treatments more effectively for people living with fibromyalgia.

 

Full title: Circulating leptin levels in patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis, chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia: a systematic review protocol

Open access, https://journals.lww.com/jbisrir/Ab...in_levels_in_patients_with_myalgic.99794.aspx

 

It says that they used GRADEpro GT GDT for their summary of findings table. It seems that this is a common software programs that is used to quickly collect data from and rate studies in reviews. https://gradepro.org/product/#about

Does anyone have any experience with it?

Tutorial video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EplFwVuhNwY

 

Doesn't say what criteria, so I'm not convinced that all these patients have genuine ME. I think loose criteria leads to problems replicating results.

 

@Caroline Struthers may know about this.
Though as Hutan states it it comes from a psych base.

 

I know a bit about GRADE and consider it pseudoscience along with the Cochrane risk of bias tool. GRADE people really seem to love it though. I guess it must produce very impressive looking tables. I remember one top level GRADE person giving a presentation once about how the GRADE predictions of whether the evidence was reliable or not turned out not to be very reliable! He was very disappointed and surprised, and determined to try and work out why GRADE was not very reliable at detecting the reliability of research. It would be better if such energy could be directed at improving the reliability of research rather than improving tools to detect unreliability. Hey ho.

 

I found the study Gerald Gartlehner presented. It was about stability not reliability. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK321518/. I was not a fan of GRADE before...and his presentation of these findings just confirmed my suspicions that it's pretty useless. But all the EBMers use it.

 

comparing leptin levels (as leptin acts immunologically, similar to IL-6, it is theorized) could be of interest in delineating who has ME/CFS vs who has fibro.

Though, I don't know that it is vitally important to know this.

 

I've met Dr Musker, he didn't actually have strong beliefs about etiology and is leading the team because he has experience as a clinician, skilled with enrolling patients into studies.
The project/team was started under Julio Licinio, a Brazilian with a strong focus on biological-psychiatry, with an interest in leptin. Most of his research involves trying to find biomarkers.

They conducted a study monitoring IL-6 and leptin levels at 7 minute intervals over 8 hours:
http://sacfs.asn.au/news/2016/02/02_13_sahmri_calling_for_research_participants.htm

I guess that paper should be published soon.

 

Biography: Dr Michael Musker Senior Reserach Fellow, RN, DPSN, BA(HON), MSc, PhD.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8226-8630