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Article on biomedical ME-research in Denmark

Kalliope

Senior Member
Messages
367
Location
Norway
Danish Videnskab.dk writes about news from science. Today they have an article about Danish researchers who have examined mitochondria in cells from ME-patients. They are only in the beginning of their research, and say it will take years until they have finished and can publish.

Chronic fatigue can be caused by dysfunctional cells
- Now Danish researchers found signs that there is something fundamentally wrong with their cells.
"Our first tentative results suggest that there is a defect in the cells of some of these patients, which means that they have disrupted energy production," says one of the researchers, Rikke Olsen, an associate professor at Aarhus University's Molecular Medicine Research Unit .

- So far, the researchers isolated cells from ten patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.
The cells are kept alive artificially in a laboratory so that scientists can experiment with them and keep track of how they react when they are exposed to drugs and various forms of stress.


Original article
Google- translation
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
I believe this is the fourth team to report that in-vitro, cells from patients struggle with energy production under exertion or stress.

Newton, Davis, Fluge and Mella, now these Danish researchers. I hope I got this right.
 
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Aroa

Senior Member
Messages
109
Location
Spain
They are only in the beginning of their research, and say it will take years until they have finished and can publish.

Chronic fatigue can be caused by dysfunctional cells
- Now Danish researchers found signs that there is something fundamentally wrong with their cells.
"Our first tentative results suggest that there is a defect in the cells of some of these patients, which means that they have disrupted energy production,"



We Know already there is a problem with energy production, as a result of serum signalling but not a defect in the cell itself.

Hopefully, this year Ron Davis team will answer more specific questions about what molecules are the culprit ones and find effective drugs for ME treatment .
 
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Sorry to say, but this is another example of useless research.
I would suggest that there is a strong possibility that patients worldwide need these replication-type studies done by scientists using their native language. We know in the UK that foreign research counts for far less under the existing NICE regime than UK research, and it wouldn't surprise me if a similar tendency is found in other countries,.

So while it may seem like a frustrating example of the wheel being reinvented, this is how good science is done, and we desperately need good science to be done.
 

Aroa

Senior Member
Messages
109
Location
Spain
Yes I understand your point about the psychological issues.

I wonder how many times should it be proved that this is a physical illness :bang-head:
 
Messages
2,125
Go replicators!
images
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Not science until it is independently replicated. Preferably several times.

Go replicators! :woot:

It needs several formal published studies. There are also some contradictory observations. Newton probably only indirectly saw this when she reported reduced glucose intake in muscle cells. Davis hasn't published. Fluge and Mella did publish some observations about cell culture experiments where the saw this

the cells exposed to ME/CFS serum displayed a metabolic change involving amplified lactate production under conditions of energetic strain.

I think it's fair to say that these results are preliminary and that we still have very little understanding of what is really going on with cellular metabolism. We really do need more research, and we want additional research groups to get involved.
 
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A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Prof. Ivan Brandslund has not done work on this illness before and he thinks it's an exciting area.

This disease is a complex matter, and you can make all sorts of assumptions about what the result. There is done a lot of research, but no one has yet mastered how it hangs together. I have certainly not seen any convincing. It is unknown territory, and therefore it is an exciting area

You have to know the mechanisms underlying a disease in order to process it. One could not treat diabetes, before it was known that patients do not produce insulin

The professor, who has not previously conducted research on chronic fatigue syndrome, shall in connection with an EU project called low mass spectrometric analyzes of blood samples from patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. (See fact box)

Ivan Brandslund is part of an EU-funded transnational research project on chronic fatigue syndrome called the European Network on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

This seems to the http://me-pedia.org/wiki/EUROMENE project bearing fruit.
 

Deltrus

Senior Member
Messages
271
Would be interesting if they tried replicating sauna conditions on these cells. Lack of electrolytes and high heat.
 

CFS_for_19_years

Hoarder of biscuits
Messages
2,396
Location
USA
The cells are kept alive artificially in a laboratory so that scientists can experiment with them and keep track of how they react when they are exposed to drugs and various forms of stress.
Whenever I hear the phrase "the cells were exposed to stress," I imagine someone shouting at them saying things like "You'll never amount to anything, why can't you be like your brother," or "Your wife is leaving you" or "Your check bounced."
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Just spotted that Aarhus University is also the home of our "friend" Per Fink, of Karina Hasen infamy. Perhaps a possible line of advocacy there, how can the University support both someone who insists on a pyschological explanation of ME, and "treats" patients accordingly, and a team who are confirming biomedical abnormalities?

Sounds like there will eventually be a showdown between the two rival schools of thought.
 

Manganus

Senior Member
Messages
166
Location
Canary islands
how can the University support both someone who insists on a pyschological explanation of ME, and "treats" patients accordingly, and a team who are confirming biomedical abnormalities?
I don't know how universities function in the UK. I've never studied there. But outside of the UK, this is nothing surprising. Universities are not run like in the Soviet Union. Different faculties and different institutions are quite independent of eachother.