Tryptophan metabolites in cerebrospinal fluid of ME/CFS patients, Maccallini, 2022

I present here a comparison between the levels of tryptophan (Trp), kynurenine (Kyn), serotonin (Ser), Kyn/Trp, and Ser/Trp in cerebrospinal fluid of 44 ME/CFS patients vs 21 sedentary controls. Raw data were retrieved from (Baraniuk JN et al. 2021). Stratification by sex has been included in the analysis. No differences can be found between patients and controls.

Results

Serotonin and Ser/Trp are significantly elevated in ME/CFS patients vs sedentary controls (p = 0.028 and 0.037, respectively), Table 1, Figure 1. But once we apply a correction for three independent variables, these differences are no more statistically significant. When we stratified by sex, none of the comparisons led to a statistically significant difference between patients and controls (Figure 2, Figure 3). The conclusion is that no difference can be found in the level of Trp, Kyn, Ser, Kyn/Trp, and Ser/Trp in cerebrospinal fluid of ME/CFS patients when compared to sedentary controls.

https://paolomaccallini.com/2022/07...es-in-cerebrospinal-fluid-of-me-cfs-patients/

 

Edit : Ignore this post, I'm completely confused about the point(s) being made.

The full title of the paper is :

Exercise modifies glutamate and other metabolic biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid from Gulf War Illness and Myalgic encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

What's the betting that one of the "medicines" pushed on to patients with ME and Gulf War Illness from the start of their illness onwards, over and over again, is anti-depressants "to raise their serotonin".

 

This is the paper that @paolo extracted the data from. His analysis is not part of the paper.

Edit: apologies, I had forgotten to include the link.

 

His analysis is here, https://paolomaccallini.com/2022/07...es-in-cerebrospinal-fluid-of-me-cfs-patients/

 

CSF may not contain the abnormal metabolites that might be occurring in ME. It's possible for them to be localized to specific parts of the brain.

 

Or specific tissues. Yet its important to test the obvious before looking for the harder to find things.