knackers323
Senior Member
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Folate added to foods, pollution, EMF, new infectious disease?
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There are two things: did it really start 40 years ago? And has the prevalence progressed over the last 40 years?Why does it seem like cfs only started in the last fourty years or so?
Agreed on all the above, Alex. I also wanted to add my following thoughts:Complete incapacity to distinguish ME from a psychiatric illness?
I do think that prevalence is probably worse, and there is a huge list of factors that might be involved, probably numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The types and range of chemicals in our environment now is huge, and they can combine with each other to produce new and untested chemicals.
Most likely though is its a colossal failure to diagnose. Even now they get it wrong on a regular basis.
True. Given my personal experience, I am 100% convinced that ME/CFS has an infectious trigger or triggers. No doubt in my mind. But the infection is not rapid and requires certain immune conditions.There is also this issue. Prevalence might have increased, but the sheer number of people is also higher. Even with the same prevalence of 80 years ago the number affected would be higher.
Yes and no.Yep it may be that it wasn't diagnosed before then, but you would think there would be some accounts or even other outbreaks of it before this time if it existed then.
Yes and no.
There are some accounts suggesting ME. I read somewhere that Darwin may have had the disease. Florence Nightingale too. ME does not have a very specific symptom that distinguishes it from other illnesses. ME would look like any terminal cancer or MS. A hundred years ago, the terms neurasthenia and 'languors' were used, some sort of dustbin terms for anything that involved fatigue. Let's keep in mind that at that time, people had numerous infections combined with poor nutrition. Proper sewage, drinkable water, bacteriologically clean food, sufficient food, good dental care, etc mean that we have less infections than those living 200 years ago. The same symptoms ME patients have today would be considered in patients of 1800 as infections, nutrient deficiencies, and so on. The difference is that today our symtoms stand out more because infections and deficiencies are less feequent and can be identified.
Reporting outbreaks is a relatively new phenomena (the last century or so). Before, there were virtually no reports except when diseases quickly killed a large portion of the population, such as plague or cholera.
I think when changes come slowly, the human body can adapt. Over the generations people have adapted to some environmental changes. For example, in Ireland, thousands of years ago, the human body adapted to the point that adults could tolerate lactose (not only children). And Irish people were able to survive on a milk-based diet during long winters. Same for wheat that was modified/crossbred over the centuries to have the product we now know. Through that very slow modification, gluten appeared and over the generations it was tolerated. There are just 3 or 4 generations per century. It is not a lot of time to pass on the newly adapted genes.Stressors = everything mentioned by the posters above = non-nutritious food, food additives, "folic acid", cleaning products, paints, perfumes, personal care products, plastics, car exhaust, water pollution, air pollution, vaccines, mercury fillings, GMOs, hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
I mean, what isn't poisoned in our society?