The Naked Scientists...............including autopsy reports on ME

Here is something worth reading. Dr Esther's for its entertainment value...................we are from the lower socio-economic classes (well, we are now, Esther, thanks to your unsupportive, disbelieving colleagues....................and all those poor doctors, high court judges who are so afflicted............are they aware they are considered by Esther to be of the lower orders? .................and we are more likely to be immigrants...........................its the stress and our lack of education, of course.......................oh and by the way what did happen to the Parkering study on children?).......................and then there are autopsy reports in the last article which deals with the reality.

You can also learn why your feet smell of cheese if you so desire.



http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/show/20120513/?forumid=331851

Cracking Chronic Fatigue

Chris Smith

Kat Arney

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) sufferers describe symptoms of severe exhaustion, weakness, muscle pain and fatigue. But why, and what is science revealing about the underlying causes of the condition? We talk to a researcher who is probing the genetic links to the syndrome, a clinician with evidence that the muscles of patients accumulate acid when they exercise and a pathologist with post-mortem evidence of inflammation in the nervous systems of CFS sufferers. Also, in the news this week, the ants that help a pitcher plant to catch its lunch, the missile-hurling zoo chimp who plans his attacks in advance, and does non-coding DNA hold the key to how chromosomes recognise their opposite number? Plus, the cause of cheesy feet goes under the microscope in our Question of the Week.

Interviews

[as MP3]
What is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

Dr. Esther Crawley explains what chronic fatigue syndrome is, who gets it, the genetic component of chronic fatigue syndrome, and what we can currently do to help young people with the disease.

[as MP3]
Looking at Muscle Cells in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Professor Julia Newton has been looking at muscle cells from patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, to see if a problem with acid could be causing fatigue - and to work out if we can use this to treat patients
Inflammation in Chronic Fatigue
Some unusual neurological findings at post mortem suggest a mechanism which causes the symptom of pain in chronic fatigue syndrome..

Inflammation in Chronic Fatigue

Dr. Abhijit Chaudhuri, Queen's Hospital, Romford and Professor Hugh Perry, Southampton University
Louise - Think back to the last time you had the flu. You probably had some muscle pain and a bad headache, felt completely exhausted, and you might even have had trouble thinking straight. Most people get over the flu and other viral infections including glandular fever in a few weeks or so. But for a few people, those symptoms continue for months and years afterwards, becoming chronic fatigue syndrome. Not everyone with chronic fatigue syndrome has a viral infection before they develop the disease, but many patients do, and it is often the flu or glandular fever. And although chronic fatigue syndrome was first defined in 1988, we still don't know how, or why, these viral infections seem to be able to trigger the condition. And in fact, we have very little idea of what's happening in patients’ bodies to cause their symptoms. Post mortem studies are one of the best places to start. Now, a team including Dr. Dominic O'Donovan from Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and Dr. Abhijit Chaudhuri from Queen’s Hospital in Romford has looked at the nervous systems of four patients who suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome. Here’s what Dr. Chaudhuri has to say.
Abhijit - It is quite clear that there is an abnormality that is directed towards specific parts of nervous system.
Louise - So, what abnormalities did they find? In the first patient Dr. O'Donovan examined, he found large numbers of deposits called corpora amylacea spread throughout the brain and spinal cord. Professor Perry is the professor of experimental neuropathology at Southampton University and although he wasn’t involved in the study, he has given us his opinion of the findings.
Hugh - Corpora amylacea are little deposits that are seen in the brain of quite a lot of people who have different types of neurodegenerative disease. Precisely what their significance is, I think is really unclear, except that they are usually associated with tissue degeneration. So they could be the deposits if you like, evidence of a degeneration process.
Louise - This finding suggests that nerve cells in the patient’s brain and spinal cord were being damaged or destroyed while he was still alive. But it tells us nothing about what was causing that damage. The next patient the team looked at might provide the answer. There was inflammation in the dorsal root ganglia. These are structures near where the sensory nerves enter the spinal cord and normally, they only contain nerve cells and a few supporting structures. But Dr. O'Donovan found immune cells infiltrating these ganglia and these immunecells, which are called cytotoxic T cells, normally kill other cells in the body in order to control viral infections or to remove damaged cells. Previous work has shown that patients with chronic fatigue syndrome often have more of these T cells in their blood. But what does it mean if they're infiltrating the dorsal root ganglia? Professor Perry again...

Hugh - The dorsal root ganglia are the neurons that convey sensory information into the spinal cord and that sensory information includes pain, temperature, pressure, and so forth, where possibly pain information is the most important of all in this context, as we know that there are many people with CFS who complain of pain in their extremities. So, to then find around those neurons evidence of inflammation, which is what the T cells are telling us, is there's some sort of inflammatory response, is of itself very interesting.
Louise - Both Professor Perry and Dr. O'Donovan agree that this inflammation could be causing referred pain - meaning the muscle and joint pain people with chronic fatigue syndrome often experience could actually be the result of their own immune systems attacking these nerves in the dorsal root ganglia. And when Dr. O'Donovan stained the dorsal root ganglia of two other patients to detect T cells, he found the same inflammation, although milder. So, all the chronic fatigue patients included in this study had either active inflammation in their peripheral nervous system or signs of a degenerative process in their spinal cord and brain. But it’s not clear how, or if, the inflammation is related to the degeneration found in that first patient, particularly as they’re affecting different parts of the nervous system. And with only four patients, this is a very small study and much more work is needed before we can be sure what these preliminary findings might mean. In particular, it is very important that we compare patients with chronic fatigue syndrome with people who do not have the disease. But this part of the nervous system is not normally examined in detail during a post mortem. Nonetheless, these results could be an interesting starting point for future research as Dr. Chaudhuri points out...
Abhijit - The fact that we are seeing an abnormality should persuade us to undertake more focused research into the neuroimmunological aspects of the disease.
Louise - And could the fact that T cells are involved in controlling viral infection such as glandular fever be the link between these infections and chronic fatigue syndrome? We’ll just have to wait and see.

May 2012

This is one of the most exciting pieces of research to me CG (at last I know my brain "high spots" have a fancier name now). Stunning work though I don't go for long term neurodegeneration since memory, thought, recognition and speed have all improved enormously. T cells infiltrating the DRG to control infection - can only say most likely to my mind. So what was the infection, crossed the BBB ?. All very exciting - thanks CG.

All this merely backs up what was found in autopsies a year or two after the 1950s London hospital outbreak! (inflammation of the same areas)
*slaps forehead*
gawd ALMIGHTY, is the medical system congenitally stupid or what?
60 FREAKING YEARS they've had had evidence for such to work from, and bar a miniscule number of decent folk like these, the profession/researchers have sat with their thumbs up their arses playing tiddlywinks with their man-prawns while sniffing glue!!
or, so it would seem....

useful work but like...obvious to anyone with a clue.
We should be vastly in advance simply because of those old clues.
This shows how much the bigotry and of the profession and wrong doing of the babblers have held things back...60 years...it's like they've only just discovered penicillin.
Sigh.

What is Esther Crawley's source of information that "the poorer the country, the more common it [CFS] seems to be"? Really, has anyone compiled statistics on incidence country by country?

Thanks, Countrygirl for the info.

I don't know where this should go but important enough to come out of where it is. Tying up much research here. Certainly ain't general.

Didn't a fellow 'expert' claim that you don't find 'CFS' in Africa ..... or France?

Never thought this site a "love in" but followers of science and medical discoveries - whoops am I wrong when real research moves ME on. ! - the wheel existed long ago.

For heavens sake let all with ME welcome discovery and those who find them. A simple request - Dr Chaudri elevated here. Part the whole for us and I know it. So I suggest an area of DISCOVERIES. We must move on as research findings come in.

I agree Silver, this is not a new finding. Many of our Neurologists already know this from our MRI's etc.

It's great some news doctors are aware & getting involved, but I am highly sceptical it will lead anywhere.

They don't need to wait until we are dead, I am here right now with unexplained brain & spinal lesions.

I'm not aware of any country that has ME or CFS as a notifiable disease and keeps accurate statistics. We did bring that up in the UK. They could use a code (from memory a read or reid code) and PCT's could have got figures that way but they don't.

I can't read the first two posts at all, since most of the text has a color set instead of the default. Could you please edit them so they're readable? Thanks!

Valentjn they can be read if you highlight them with your mouse

Yes, if I'm feeling masochistic enough to read a bunch of bright blue text with a white background ... I'm not

Is it possible that people with money or status get diagnosed with something more acceptible ?
Like ms or ataxia or ?

If it's like much of her research, I think it's likely she just pulled it out of the nearest available orifice. I feel confident that if anyone had done epidemiological studies of that nature, we would have heard about it.

Well that was... tiresome laborious and gratingly annoying to put it mildly. A couple of contradictions along with some plainly unfounded assertions. Is she what passes as a middle of the road CFS researcher in the UK? At least some of the other topics were interesting.

Based on the comment "Post mortem studies are one of the best places to start.", do we have any volunteers? (I assume they've discounted any previuos ones as those may be "old and out of date".)

So, I guess we need fresh bodies. Of course, after the post mortem, there will be a discussion as to whether they were "objectively" diagnosed with ME/CFS.....

I think I'll go last.....

It would be helpful to know the histories of the patients before they passed. My ME CFS started with inflammation in my neck which was relieved by Vioxx. Vioxx gave me an ulcer. (Guts issues) After going off the Vioxx, the pain was so bad I had a cervical disectomy with fusion which launched my ME CFS into orbit. This dorsal root ganglia/ inflammation fits me to a painful T. This seems to explain my pain....which feels like acid in my spine at times...anybody else. Any treatment idea's?

Louise - Both Professor Perry and Dr. O'Donovan agree that this inflammation could be causing referred pain - meaning the muscle and joint pain people with chronic fatigue syndrome often experience could actually be the result of their own immune systems attacking these nerves in the dorsal root ganglia. And when Dr. O'Donovan stained the dorsal root ganglia of two other patients to detect T cells, he found the same inflammation, although milder. So, all the chronic fatigue patients included in this study had either active inflammation in their peripheral nervous system or signs of a degenerative process in their spinal cord and brain

I wish we DID have more post mortems, but so far we don't have any biobank equipped to do them, or a brain bank you could donate your body to. I would certainly write it into my will that I want my body donated to ME/CFS research if there were any place that wanted it.