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Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

med.stanford.edu

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Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#161

Post by stordoff »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #87
jdietrich wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Millions of people (in the US alone!) suffer from this illness and I think everyone has wondered, or heard it wondered, if it's imaginary. For all these people to know there's something actually physically wrong with them is massive. IMO the broader issue is the stigma against mental illness. The leading hypothesis remains that chronic fatigue syndrome is a mental illness. Both your comment and the linked article im…

> IMO the broader issue is the stigma against mental illness Yeah yeah that rubbish again. I have mental illness (see my posts for boring details) and I've always been open about it, except when it's so obvious that people pick up on it without my assistance. I've never had a problem. Stop saying there is a stigma. Any stigma may be down much more to the individual's anticipation of stigma which might cause them to n…

> In my judgment, the 2017 regulations [...] were blatantly discriminatory against those with mental health impairments and which cannot be objectively justified. The wish to save nearly £1 billion a year at the expense of those with mental health impairments is not a reasonable foundation for passing this measure.

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2017/3375.html

Or in my sister's case, her employer not accepting a sick note because she is "making it up".

I've seen an autistic student being heckled by a member of staff as he should stop being such a baby.

There definitely is a stigma against mental illness. It may not be as bad as some people make out, but it's there.

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#163

Post by stordoff »

sagebird wrote: post #52
whalabi wrote: post #31

I'm just astonished by this. Millions of people (in the US alone!) suffer from this illness and I think everyone has wondered, or heard it wondered, if it's imaginary. For all these people to know there's something actually physically wrong with them is massive. It'll shift the thinking of everyone in the profession, of their families and friends and colleagues, and of themselves. It's a huge, huge breakthrough.

I would like to see controls that make an attempt to differentiate psychogenic causes. IE if you paid 20 people who do not claim to have chronic fatigue syndrome but have depression to fake having chronic fatigue syndrome for two months- eg watch tv on a couch, then they were tested, I wonder if they would not have the biomarkers. Likewise, I would like to see how people who claim to have fibromyalgia would do on thi…

> have depression to fake having chronic fatigue syndrome for two months- eg watch tv on a couch

If you think this is what CFS is, you clearly have no idea. Have you even fallen asleep while eating a meal, despite having a good night's sleep the night before? Have you even slept for 18 hours because you have had the audacity to go to collage for three hours? Someone I know does on a routine basis.

> Would we finally declare their ufo sighting reports to be accurate?

No, but we might ask if there is some underlying connection that causes them to perceive UFOs (also, comparing probably illusionary UFO sightings to obvious, observable [regardless of cause] symptoms is rather insulting).

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#164

Post by killjoywashere »

kens wrote: post #137
Smaug123 wrote: post #2

Paper at https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2019/04/24/190127411... Pleasantly surprised to discover that it was legally available! The test appears to be ridiculously good. Perfect separation of 40 subjects into those who have been diagnosed with CFS and those who are known to be healthy, from blood samples. I want to see this replicated, by people who are not the original authors; but if this test is anything…

Thanks for the paper link. I read the paper and it's really a semiconductor sensor engineering paper, not a biology paper. The paper seems very preliminary; it shows that CFS and non-CFS sample have widely different impedances under osmotic stress, but the mechanism behind this is entirely hand-waving. If I'm reading the paper correctly, the samples were peripheral blood mononuclear cells (i.e. lots of different cell…

> samples were peripheral blood mononuclear cells

Yeah, I was expecting to see flow cytometric cell sorting (1) for monocytes on CD14 and CD64 (2), which I would believe to be monocytes.

The "sample preparation" procedure they describe (3) is ... somewhat lacking in specificity. They pelletized the sample three times. I'm not even sure those cells are intact, and, mechanistically, the sample no doubts includes granulocytes, lymphocytes, and monos, so who knows what's going on there.

(1) https://www.labome.com/method/Flow-Cytometry-and-Cell-Sortin...

(2) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9844593

(3) https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2019/04/25/190127411...

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#165

Post by dc_gregory »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #102
ipunchghosts wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. What i mean is that scientists discovered a problem and 1) pursued it regardless of what the major funding agencies thought of it 2) encouraged patients to get involved and 3) informed the public of their progress regularly allowing for open discussion and collaboration.

No wait - the scientist was a father of a person who had the illness, and the father had a team of scientists willing to work on the issue he himself decided to work on. You on the other hand are selling it as if all of those researchers were working for free at the time.

I think you've misread the OP here; jump back to this guideline as a rule of thumb, its helped me a great deal.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:

>> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#166

Post by skellington »

tigershark wrote: post #157
jdietrich wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Millions of people (in the US alone!) suffer from this illness and I think everyone has wondered, or heard it wondered, if it's imaginary. For all these people to know there's something actually physically wrong with them is massive. IMO the broader issue is the stigma against mental illness. The leading hypothesis remains that chronic fatigue syndrome is a mental illness. Both your comment and the linked article im…

Can you please explain me how can be something that happens physically in white blood cells and their plasma a psychological illness?

Because your mind heavily affects the environment in which your cells live through hormonal and other system regulation (epigenetics). A mind that is constantly stressed (for example) causes your body to be in a different hormonal state than a mind that is relaxed. This in turn can (perhaps) lead to or sustain cell dysfunction (poor immune system response, etc). Mind and body are a system. This is not woo woo, this is documented but poorly understood (placebo effect for example).

Also, none of the above implies that the mind is the cause of all disease.

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#167

Post by cpncrunch »

GordonS wrote: post #143
cpncrunch wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some evidence sure, not "the" evidence. At least 4 studies that looked at it all found that it was triggered by stress or viral infection. If you're aware of any other contrary evidence, I'm interested. >Unfortunately I don't know any CFS patients that have recovered, or even gone into remission; for everyone I know, it's been a chronic condition. Here on HN there is myself and tomhoward for starters, and I know lot…

> viral infections (which are physiologically stressful) There is evidence relating to viral infections, yes. But is it really necessary to refer to such infections being "physiologically stressful"? I just don't see the relevance of that. > Here on HN there is myself and tomhoward for starters, and I know lots of other patients who have also recovered Sorry, I didn't mean to imply recovery wasn't possible, but re-re…

>But is it really necessary to refer to such infections being "physiologically stressful"? I just don't see the relevance of that.

Viral infections activate the HPA axis...that is what is meant by "physiologically stressful". See:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1224723/

The relevance is that stress seems to be the common factor as a trigger, and the stress system seems to be dysfunctional in CFS.

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#168

Post by MRD85 »

ufo wrote: post #119
nuclx wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of harm does exercise do? Can you refer to any sources?

It aggravates the symptoms of CFS (fatigue, pain, headaches, etc). It can last multiple days after exercise. (Source: I know a person who suffers from CFS)

I had CFS that originated as a post viral illness after Epstein Barr Virus. The kicker is that I was in the military when this happened. By Tuesday every week, after 2 PT sessions, I was on a downhill slope. If I did a third session on Wednesday it was likely I was spending 5-7 days in bed. I'd been hospitalised for exhaustion.

I had every medical test under the sun and everything came back negative except my recent markers for EPV. I was lucky, my OC signed off for me to not to exercise and I didn't do PT for 9 months. During this period my CFS very slowly got better and I appear to be mostly better now.

You don't want to get CFS while in Army

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#169

Post by tempguy9999 »

stordoff wrote: post #161
tempguy9999 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMO the broader issue is the stigma against mental illness Yeah yeah that rubbish again. I have mental illness (see my posts for boring details) and I've always been open about it, except when it's so obvious that people pick up on it without my assistance. I've never had a problem. Stop saying there is a stigma. Any stigma may be down much more to the individual's anticipation of stigma which might cause them to n…

> In my judgment, the 2017 regulations [...] were blatantly discriminatory against those with mental health impairments and which cannot be objectively justified. The wish to save nearly £1 billion a year at the expense of those with mental health impairments is not a reasonable foundation for passing this measure. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2017/3375.html Or in my sister's case, her employer not acce…

Regarding your link, I don't have time to read it (did skim it) but I'm talking about personal levels of discrimination, not governmental. If you want to talk about institutional discrimination, some may have it worse, I know a trans girl whose operation is being repeatedly pushed back. I can see why, given the strictures on NHS funding, but it really has made things miserable for her.

Your sister may have just had a shitty employer. Someone I knew told me of finding someone literally crying in pain due to RSI, and the employer's response was telling them to take painkillers. There are bad employers, for sure. Mine aren't.

Does your sister's experience invalidate mine? No. Does mine invalidate hers? No. We are stuck, perhaps on terminology of what discrimination is, or perhaps I've been very lucky. People have been extremely decent to me, that's all I can say.

My fear is that by talking up the alleged stigma, we're reinforcing or even creating it. I hope that makes sense.

Re: Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified

#170

Post by losteric »

perl4ever wrote: post #142
wavepruner wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found out last year the root cause of my CFS is life-long mercury toxicity (a well understood neurotoxin). I am responding very positively to treatment. I rarely talk about it because people get very upset when I tell them about the evidence of where the mercury came from.

I don't get angry like some people about "anti-vaxxers", but the reason I am not one, is because I think that if low levels of mercury were a major health issue, then it would be apparent in large populations that consume a relatively large amount of mercury-containing seafood. e.g. Japan. And in Japan, there have also, as it happens, been incidents of acute mercury poisoning with significant numbers of people, so th…

Yes, data on mercury toxicity is quite clear that vaccines as safe.

However it's unfortunately easy to find sham "doctors" that will diagnose whatever the patient requests - mercury poisoning, EBV, chronic lyme disease, just pay in full and all your beliefs will be confirmed! Just don't look too closely at the placebo, er, cure...

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