Investigation into the restoration of TRPM3 ion channel activity in post COVID-19 ...,Sasso, Marshall-Gradisnik et al,2024

A few asides before I read past the introduction (ignore if you aren't in the mood for pedantry)

I do not like that definition. We've discussed 'complex' and 'multisystemic' before - neither are very helpful and 'complex' often leaves the door wide open for a psychological contribution to etiology. What is 'complex' actually saying there? If people want to say that there are a number of symptoms, it's probably more helpful to list some of them e.g. 'with a number of symptoms including ...'. I have no idea what 'post-exertional neuroimmune exhaustion' is - I assume it is used because it sounds as though someone knows something. But I'm not just exhausted when I have PEM, and I don't know if my neuroimmune system is exhausted either. This description emphasises fatigue. And we've talked about 'not alleviated by rest' as being problematic too, as resting does actually reduce fatigue in a way that 'not resting' does not. Maybe 'chronic fatigue not resolved by rest' would be better?

Oddly, the term post-exertional malaise is used too but it is not defined - this is the paragraph before paragraph quoted above:

I'm pretty sure that is a typo there. There are quite a lot of instances of clunky language that make the paper harder to read. I understand the difficulties of writing in a language that isn't your first language, possibly that was the case here. But supervisors who are native English speakers and who have been co-authors on ME/CFS papers for years should be providing more support so that we get papers that do justice to the effort that was expended on the lab work.

I don't think 30% of people having a SARS-CoV-2 infection and then not returning to their prior state of health is credible.

 

It's yet another study with small numbers in the groups.

We have discussed the difficulty of characterising NK cell function before. Blood samples were collected from many places, with a full blood count completed within 4 hours at labs that are not NCNED. But, the authors do not say how long it was before the samples got to NCNED and the isolation of the NK cells and subsequent analyses were done.

I've just made a thread for a paper that suggests a protocol for evaluating NK cell cytotoxicity. Flow Cytometric Analysis of Natural Killer Cell Lytic Activity in Human Whole Blood, 2017, McBride et al That paper says talks about a four hour window from blood collection for evaluation, although it does not present new evidence for that assertion. So, that's not just 4 hours from collection to full blood count, but 4 hours from collection to cytotoxicity evaluation (and any experiments reliant on NK cell function).

 

Sure, but we never see such well-powered and definitive studies out of NCNED. They have received a lot of the Australian ME/CFS funding, probably more than any other group. From here, it's hard to know if the funds are being used well. I do think that it's questionable to keep doing small, possibly flawed, studies based on the foundation of the TRPM3 finding without proving beyond all doubt that there is a real abnormality there.