End of the deconditioning myth
Interesting article on the NASA bed rest study.
I'm sure some will be tempted view this as supporting the deconditioning model of ME/CFS... but the rapidity at which the participant returned to normal functioning after serious deconditioning is very different from what is seen in ME/CFS. A course of GET should have people returning to full health in a few weeks if deconditioning were the only problem
Thanks. Yes, this blows the deconditioning model away. After 70 days bed rest this person would have been considerably more deconditioned than a CFS patient seen at an outpatient clinic (the only way a mecfs patient ever gets seen in the UK) - at least according to many other bed rest studies that provide hard data on levels of deconditioning (once, I planned to blog on this, but never got round to it).
Andrew Iwanicki in his Vice blog said:
Within a few days of casual strolling and formal reconditioning exercise, my balance returned and my endurance began to recover. By the end of the two-week post-bed-rest period, I felt 95 percent physically normal. I was ready to go.
Now, this guy had some exercise in bed - it doesn't say how much - but the point of the blog was how weak he was after ten weeks so I guess not too much. And in other studies even after 3 months bed rest with no exercise (xtreme deconditioning), healthy volunteers recovered in a few weeks.
Andrew commented how incredibly dull it all was
I made phone calls to family less often. I often felt I had nothing to share.
"Hey, Drew! What have you been up to?"
"Not much. Still in bed..."
Guess most of us can relate to that. Not the sort of thing any sane person would choose for themselves. And even if they did, recovery through physical rehabilitation would be swift and effective.
It turns out that when people have become deconditioned due to enforced bed rest - such as comas, or when recovering from serious accidents, once they are able to exercise they recover pretty fast. In fact, there are protocols specifically for promoting fast recovery. It's a completely different story to how deconditioned people with mecfs respond to exercise.
For a more thorough critique of the deconditioning hypothesis based on PACE Trial data, see Rober Courtney's letter:
Doubts over the validity of the PACE hypothesis - The Lancet Psychiatry