• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

'Yuppie flu' an inflammatory disease which blood test could easily diagnose, say scientists

Messages
2,391
Location
UK
Last edited:

Snow Leopard

Hibernating
Messages
5,902
Location
South Australia
Agreed. But they do then tentatively point out its inappropriateness within the article. If the yuppie flu headline draws people in to then read that its not what they assumed it to be ... I can live with that.

I disagree
It's like saying Niggers blah blah... and then saying later in the article "use of the term Nigger is inappropriate blah blah". Slurs like this are never appropriate.
 

Lolo

Senior Member
Messages
306
Location
AUS
Agreed. But they do then tentatively point out its inappropriateness within the article. If the yuppie flu headline draws people in to then read that its not what they assumed it to be ... I can live with that.
Yeah but a lot of the time I only read the headlines and I am sure a lot of other people do as well.

And I don't know about others but for me CFS is not extreme tiredness but extreme fatigue and or exhaustion. I wish I was so tired that I could sleep but I am not.:(
 
Last edited:

ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
"Simply put, Montoya says, those tests aren't measuring the right things."

What I've been telling my doctors for years...

"There is much to learn," Komaroff writes, in the journal. "Hopefully, a decade from now, "doctors will know better what to measure and, more importantly, what to do to ease the suffering caused by this illness."

I can't wait a decade... this makes me want to give up
 
Last edited:

Forbin

Senior Member
Messages
966
According to Dr. Anthony L. Komaroff, a Harvard internist and epidemiologist who has written a commentary to accompany the study, "For many years medical scientists have speculated that the symptoms of ME/CFS might be caused by cytokines, molecules that the immune system use to wage war against foreign invaders of the body. Past studies have shown high levels of many cytokines but it was not clear that these high levels were causing symptoms."
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...elusive-lab-test-for-chronic-fatigue-syndrome

Has anyone seen a link to Dr. Komaroff's commentary? I don't know if it would be available on-line or only in the print edition of PNAS.
 

Forbin

Senior Member
Messages
966
I do like the way the concise way this is put:
Because it often occurs following an illness, infection or traumatic event, such as a car accident, scientists have suspected that it could be that the immune system [is] failing to shut down properly.

...or it's staying on deliberately to fight some chronic threat, or some cascade of events following infection has triggered autoimmunity (if that's possible).
 

boolybooly

Senior Member
Messages
161
Location
Northants UK
What happened to subtypes?

Regarding the car crash example its not necessarily the same syndrome if CFS occurs after a trauma compared to a virus.

While I welcome the optimistic tone coming from Stanford and the recognition of reality coming from The Telegraph you cant get to there from here without distinguishing subtypes.
 

ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
What happened to subtypes?


Is this the list of subtypes that you're referring to?

  1. Type 1 - high levels of depression and anxiety as well as poor sleep and high degrees of pain.
  2. Type 2 - severe post-exertional fatigue, joint and muscle pains.
  3. Type 3 - mildest form of the disease.
  4. Type 4 - moderate levels of body pain and sleep problems
  5. Type 5 - most severe muscle weakness and predominance of gut problems
  6. Type 6 - associated with significant fatigue
  7. Type 7 - most severe form with high levels of pain, swollen glands and headaches.
 

boolybooly

Senior Member
Messages
161
Location
Northants UK
Is this the list of subtypes that you're referring to?

  1. Type 1 - high levels of depression and anxiety as well as poor sleep and high degrees of pain.
  2. Type 2 - severe post-exertional fatigue, joint and muscle pains.
  3. Type 3 - mildest form of the disease.
  4. Type 4 - moderate levels of body pain and sleep problems
  5. Type 5 - most severe muscle weakness and predominance of gut problems
  6. Type 6 - associated with significant fatigue
  7. Type 7 - most severe form with high levels of pain, swollen glands and headaches.

That was the Kerr study, it later failed to prove these subtypes in the statistical analysis following on from the study because they could not predict the subtype of an individual based on the data and the derived signatures.

My comment was really a rhetorical way of saying we cannot proceed until we have sorted this issue out. If Stanford have found a way to screen their subjects then this needs to be discussed in any write up so we can learn from any criteria they used to get consistency.

For the field as a whole we need a molecular standard for distinguishing subtypes and not get ahead of ourselves because all that will happen is team A will say we found a thing and team B will say we tested our CFS group and found diddley, especially if team B are looking for govt or insurance funding.