Yep it is indeed "Saturday Morning" on Radtio New Zealand at 7.41am (NZST) - so likely interviewing right now. The show is usually uploaded and available to listen by Saturday afternoon BST.
Should be able to listen
here when the episode is uploaded.
Interview of Chris Ponting on Radio New Zealand this morning.
It was a good interview, maybe 10 mins long though so not very deep. My notes follow, probably less useful than an actual transcript of the short interview, but I've done them.
Technology used has been around for 15-20 years, well overdue to apply it to this common and debilitating condition
Chris mentioned female predominance. The interviewer queried why? Chris said that the study has not found a good explanation yet, the analysis is not finished yet.
Explained the issue that these aren’t diagnostic markers, just risk factors
People now feel heard, they say it is a welcome first step
Symptoms? – often after an infection, in that respect similar to Long Covid. Post exertional malaise – can’t sustain activity, pain, autonomic issues, feel faint, pain, sensitivities.
Interviewer – people go to doctors and are not believed. Chris – hope that it is considered that this diagnosis is real, this group of people is different compared to the general population. One of the signals is on top of a chronic pain signal.
‘It’s physical but it can be a mental toll’?
Chris – Absolutely. Brain fog.
Long Covid? Crossover Doesn’t seem to be a crossover, but another study has found crossover Precision Life. And this would not be a surprise.
Could it lead to a cure? We hope so. Long journey. We hope to accelerate diagnostic tests and treatments, data available.
Why Chris is devoting attention? Chris mentioned his friend, ME has destroyed many aspects of his life. Few people working in this area, little funding. Co-production with people with ME.
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So yes, it was a good interview. I'm not sure that it will change much though, especially given the stressing of it being a female disease and the overlap with chronic pain. There's still enormous scope there for people to assume it's a disease of females with a very low threshold for complaining about their health.
I think there probably needs to be more explanation of the fact that the 8 regions found are just clues, that many people without ME/CFS have the genetic variants, it's just that they are slightly more common in ME/CFS. It may be that the disease is caused mostly by environmental factors and chance, rather than genetic predispositions. Perhaps that needs to be said.
Related to that, I think care needs to be taken around the 'overlap with Long Covid' issue. I think we need to be noting that Long Covid is a vague term, covering many conditions including things like lung damage resulting from the acute disease. But that some people do meet ME/CFS criteria after a covid-19 infection. That is the overlap. DecodeME found 1000 or so of those people and included them in the study. I don't think the DecodeMe sample of post-Covid ME/CFS is big enough to be saying that the DecodeME tells us something useful about the overlap between ME/CFS and Long Covid. I don't think any/many significant variants were found in the male subsample for the same reason of the sample being too small. But, we aren't saying that we don't think men get ME/CFS.
I think the question about the mental toll could have been better answered in another way - brain fog isn't really the mental toll of the disease. A good answer might have been something like 'It's a debilitating isolating disease causing many losses, so it's not surprising that people with ME/CFS might sometimes feel sad, or worried about how they will pay the bills. But, we did not find any overlap in genetic risk factors with those that have been found for depression or anxiety disorder. From the genetic evidence, ME/CFS is not the same as depression or anxiety disorder.'
The mention of Chris' personal connection to ME/CFS is always powerful. And great that the message was got across that research on this disease has been under-funded.
Sorry for the detailed analysis. It was a good interview, just trying to offer something that might fine-tune things even more, for the DecodeME team and the rest of us.
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