Kitty
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
What did you think about the apparent loss of a specific type of neuron in postmortem ME/CFS brains? It's a very small sample, but the finding looked interesting all the same.
Genetics: Chromosome 6 BTN2A2 and BTN3A3 (BTN2A1)
- Thread starter Hutan
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What did you think about the apparent loss of a specific type of neuron in postmortem ME/CFS brains? It's a very small sample, but the finding looked interesting all the same.
Jonathan Edwards
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
that's what I think.
It's disappointing to see Chris using that Vroegindeweij violin chart on hair cortisol. I've discussed those hair cortisol findings here (see also other posts upthread of that one). That Knoop team's study is small and unreliable, and the 12 people with ME/CFS had a mean hair cortisol level well in excess of the controls after a three month behavioural intervention (despite the increases in hair cortisol not being linked to recovery*). Those people were reportedly able to increase hair cortisol levels in response to the challenge of the intervention, but that did not make them well.
Three other studies did not find differences in hair cortisol.
We urgently need a study to see if that finding of CRH neuron loss is replicated. I understand that it seems like a beguilingly neat answer to the problem of ME/CFS, and perhaps it is the answer, but it is very hard to square with an unbiased assessment of the findings on cortisol in ME/CFS.
* ME/CFS group mean hair cortisol level went from 0.49 at baseline to 0.70 post-intervention. Control mean was 0.59. Edited to add: A major difference in participant mean age could account for the lower value in the ME/CFS group.
Three other studies did not find differences in hair cortisol.
We urgently need a study to see if that finding of CRH neuron loss is replicated. I understand that it seems like a beguilingly neat answer to the problem of ME/CFS, and perhaps it is the answer, but it is very hard to square with an unbiased assessment of the findings on cortisol in ME/CFS.
* ME/CFS group mean hair cortisol level went from 0.49 at baseline to 0.70 post-intervention. Control mean was 0.59. Edited to add: A major difference in participant mean age could account for the lower value in the ME/CFS group.
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ScoutB
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Yeah @Hutan I thought of your cortisol thread when that video first came out.
Chris even mentions he'd like people to tell him he's wrong -- I think it just goes to show what a mess the ME/CFS literature landscape is. Claims get repeated over and over in abstracts as truth, giving everyone (esp. newcomers) the impression something is well established, when that's not the case at all. Researchers almost have to conduct their own critical lit review on every fact they want to know about.
I have fantasized of making some kind of mini 'review' on topics like these. It could just be collecting the studies of the cortisol thread into a table summarizing their findings (and whether or not clinically relevant), anything we can say about reliability (incl. sample size), and any other caveats ("morning cortisol could be affected by patients having later waking times"). Could just go in the first post of the thread? Then we could point researchers to that, not as definitive proof of anything, but so they could easily get a sense of the strength of the evidence for themselves...
Chris even mentions he'd like people to tell him he's wrong -- I think it just goes to show what a mess the ME/CFS literature landscape is. Claims get repeated over and over in abstracts as truth, giving everyone (esp. newcomers) the impression something is well established, when that's not the case at all. Researchers almost have to conduct their own critical lit review on every fact they want to know about.
I have fantasized of making some kind of mini 'review' on topics like these. It could just be collecting the studies of the cortisol thread into a table summarizing their findings (and whether or not clinically relevant), anything we can say about reliability (incl. sample size), and any other caveats ("morning cortisol could be affected by patients having later waking times"). Could just go in the first post of the thread? Then we could point researchers to that, not as definitive proof of anything, but so they could easily get a sense of the strength of the evidence for themselves...