(2008) Family illnesses among people with ME/CFS: Blood versus non-blood relatives

[Dolphin]

This isn't PubMed-listed so some might have missed it:

Njoku, M.G., Jason, L.A., & DiPasquale, L. (2008).

Family illnesses among people with ME/CFS: Blood versus non-blood relatives. The Journal of IiME, 2, 4-11. Retrieved from

http://www.investinme.org/Documents/Journals/Journal of IiME Vol 2 Issue 2.pdf

[I don't know what happened to this thread - it was here]

 

[Marco]

Thanks for posting this.

I have to confess I found the article by Carruthers rather more fascinating.

Not an easy read and rather philosophical but he makes several interesting points in :

Dismissing the default notion of applying a psychological label to an illness when the underlying cause has yet to be determined (obviously);

Considers ME/CFS from a systems/cybernetics perspective as an individual, dynamic response whereby the body's systems strive to maintain 'self' when faced with dysregulation;

With the effect that any attempts at understanding the illness from a static reductionist perpective (which is what even the single pathogen, single pathology, single symptom studies must do to conform to the scientific method) must ignore the individuality and dynamics of the whole illness process and may unintentionally delay or divert finding an answer.

Much better for clinicians and patients to explore how the illness as a whole develops over time as a means to identify the likely processes involved and those most likely to yield results. Or to put it another way, you don't need to be able to name the pathogen before assuming that there is underlying pathology and exploring the exact nature of that pathology.

I'm pretty sure I haven't done the article justice.

Well worth a read.

PS - I've also now signed up for the Invest in ME e-news letter. Much more informative that the MEA publication.

 

[glenp]

Thank you for posting this, it looks great. I have saved it and will read it when I am having clearer days

glen