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    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.

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  1. anciendaze

    long-lived macrophages and neuroprotection

    Good catch! I've been off dealing with other matters.
  2. anciendaze

    long-lived macrophages and neuroprotection

    Medical Xpress has an article describing a paper in Cell on an unexpectedly long-lived population of macrophages in intestines and their role in protecting neurons, and not just in the gut. I doubt I have to tell people here that disturbances in the gut biome show up in a wide-range of...
  3. anciendaze

    glycolysis and gene expression

    Phys.org describes a new paper in PNAS on how glycolysis changes gene expression via histone modification. This affects quite a range of different genes, but is apparently not lethal, even for cells. I can't help but wonder if post-exertional malaise depends on clearing molecules like...
  4. anciendaze

    mTORC1 complex determines T-cell development

    @Wally, The problem with studies of HIV is the wide range of immune dysfunction it causes. You are ultimately dealing with the complete collapse of immune function. I'm sure that mTORC-1 is affected, the problem is teasing out individual causes and effects. My position on human...
  5. anciendaze

    mTORC1 complex determines T-cell development

    I've not been here for a while, due to unrelated tasks, so I may have missed some previous discussions. (For friends who worry, this is not a health problem. I'm actually a little better.) However, when I see research that affects T-cell types, metabolism and immune function I can hardly...
  6. anciendaze

    can you have orthostatic hypotension and POTS at the same time?

    Yes. There are people who have high heart rates on orthostatic challenge, which qualifies as POTS. There are others who have modest increases in heart rate that do not qualify as POTS, but do have a sharp decline in BP some minutes after standing, which qualifies as neurally-mediated...
  7. anciendaze

    NAD+ supplement reverses vascular decline in aging mice

    This is general advice for any supplement or medication. Also, try to limit changes to one at a time, so you know which change is causing problems. This takes longer, but it is less likely to fail because of adverse reactions that were not actually caused by the intervention. Over the years...
  8. anciendaze

    NAD+ supplement reverses vascular decline in aging mice

    This article is so closely related to problems that affect me I'm almost tempted to post this in a different forum. It is about an experimental study in mice, not humans, and nowhere mentions ME/CFS. I will also caution that the doses given mice appear to be much higher than in NAD+ supplements...
  9. anciendaze

    GPS2, new messenger molecule from mitochondria to nucleus.

    While the word stress is used in an alarming number of different ways, it has a non-psychological meaning when applied to mitochondria, which are not known to think at all. How do they communicate stress affecting them to the cellular machinery in the nucleus necessary to alter response...
  10. anciendaze

    Chariots of the globs: dynein-dynactin interaction in intracelluar transport

    Thinking more about why there are two of these molecules I was reminded of ascenders used by climbers going up a rope. Another analogy would be dual pawl ratchets in mechanical watches. One holds position while the other moves a step ahead. The reconstructed static image had to be build...
  11. anciendaze

    Watching Unrest again, I'm noticing something.

    @Starsister If you have been having problems with joint dislocations and subluxations for many years, you should investigate the possibility that you have hypermobility-type Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. This is inherited, so you would likely have relatives with similar problems. You may indeed...
  12. anciendaze

    Chariots of the globs: dynein-dynactin interaction in intracelluar transport

    For years I've been telling people who repeat the theory Roger Penrose has pushed, about quantum computing taking place in microtubules inside cells, that every interaction between complex molecules with peculiar shapes could be an example of quantum computing. We now have new evidence that we...
  13. anciendaze

    Watching Unrest again, I'm noticing something.

    My experience with compression stockings is that you should take them off when you lie down, to allow normal redistribution of blood. If your toes are turning white while standing that is a clear sign they are not getting enough peripheral blood flow. You do not want to restrict circulation if...
  14. anciendaze

    Watching Unrest again, I'm noticing something.

    I feel sure I know exactly what the people in the film are doing. My orthostatic intolerance has many characteristics listed on this thread, and I've reached the point, at my advanced age, where I no longer apologize for lying down and elevating my feet. It is more polite than passing out or...
  15. anciendaze

    Remarkable success of cancer immunotherapy in mice

    Just when it looked like there could never be a common treatment for different cancers an experimental study at Stanford has found that injecting two different immune stimulating agents into solid tumors caused regression of that type of cancer cell throughout the body. Cancers of different...
  16. anciendaze

    SNARE proteins and membrane fusion

    We've already mentioned such subjects as ion-channels, neurotransmitters, synapses and vesicles. You might be forgiven for failing to recognize the underlying subject in this prose about SNARE proteins, smart valves and communication within/between cells. I recognized this only because I had...
  17. anciendaze

    Malignant Hyperthermia (anesthesia allergy/sensitivity)

    The case I've heard of was connected with a periodic paralysis patient who experienced malignant hyperthermia in response to a standard muscle relaxant. Generally, the disease is described as a defect in an ion channel, and this fits both the paralysis and hyperthermia, though in different...
  18. anciendaze

    Virus-like protein involved in cognition

    Disturbed cell-to-cell communication has turned up repeatedly as a problem in diseases that are hard to pin down, including those described as psychological. We now learn that a cellular protein called Arc has a striking resemblance to a viral capsid, including the ability to carry RNA/DNA...
  19. anciendaze

    Bovine leukemia virus — a retrovirus found in around 33% of people: could it play a role in ME/CFS?

    In cattle BLV is commonly transmitted via nursing or sex. It makes sense that such a virus would concentrate in mammary tissue. The presence of BLV substantially increases risk of breast cancer in humans. Finding BLV in humans took place after decades of argument about the significance of...
  20. anciendaze

    Study finds form of actin determined by non-coding DNA

    This finding just about knocked me over. It took place at a school of veterinary medicine, so will likely be ignored by human medical researchers until replicated in humans. Beta and gamma actin are very important in cell biology, and behave differently. These researchers claim the tiny...
  21. anciendaze

    Anesthesia in plants?

    One tiny objection to that last statement. The P = NP? question is about algorithms. For those who use the terminology precisely an algorithm is an explicit means of computation which will always give a correct answer for a stated well-defined problem in a finite amount of time, even if that...
  22. anciendaze

    Anesthesia in plants?

    Microtubules are very active in dividing eukaryotic cells during mitosis. They are also very active during movement of organisms like amoebas. You can argue that these are too small to exhibit much consciousness. What about larger aggregations of such organisms as slime molds? You can argue...
  23. anciendaze

    Anesthesia in plants?

    There are multiple speculations in your last post presented as facts. I can only say that suppositions about localization of quantum effects outside of microtubules should be suspect. We already know of entanglement outside of cryogenic experiments spanning significantly more than the size of a...
  24. anciendaze

    Autonomic Nervous System Functioning Related to Nocturnal Sleep in Patients With Chronic Fatigue Syn

    Then again, compare this number with the number of patients in PACE who showed a substantial response to GET, let alone the number responding to GET+CBT (zero). There was deliberate misrepresentation of the number of patients subject to that intervention, and the number who responded by...
  25. anciendaze

    Anesthesia in plants?

    Penrose is quite capable of proposing novel ideas that are not even susceptible to testing. Take his book Cycles of Time, a semipopular presentation of Conformal Cyclic Cosmology. His ideas on conformal field theory are interesting, but would imply that all particles are ultimately massless...
  26. anciendaze

    Anesthesia in plants?

    My point was that until recently nobody knew the mechanism for something that is very highly-conserved by evolution. That points to some very important function. Microtubules are active in many kinds of cells, like those undergoing mitosis. They are also responsible for cell movement, which...
  27. anciendaze

    Actual Gene Editing in a Patient with Metabolic Disease

    Here's a new report about successful treatment of factor VIII hemophilia. It looks like the era of gene editing has arrived before the vast majority of doctors were ready.
  28. anciendaze

    Gene editing cures a real genetic disease

    The BBC is reporting that gene editing via a tailored virus has apparently cured people with factor VIII hemophilia. This has bittersweet connotations for me, because one friend with hemophilia died about 10 years ago. He had a different form involving factor IX. This could however be good...
  29. anciendaze

    Anesthesia in plants?

    These are not the same voltage-gated ion channels, but they must have enough common subunits for a small molecule like diethyl ether to fit in and cause similar changes in function. Take a look at the simple structure. You may also find the entry on metabolism, cytochrome and a dehydrogenaze...