Is this the Holy Grail we have been looking for, at least for a subset?
Its early days yet, and association is not causation, but its a darn good place to start. Furthermore it may mean finding grant money for looking for more autoantibody types that much easier to get.
This does not identify responders and nonresponders. What it does is show that patients with particular autoantibodies
may respond. The fact that nonresponders did not show an antibody decline might however mean they are justified in repeated treatment until they do respond.
It is however one of the most encouraging pieces of research all year!
One thing it might mean is that ME is not one disease, but characterized by different combinations of autoantibodies. This is just speculation at this point, but its looking more likely.
Its analogous in a way to how brain disorders may be misclassifications. How the brain is affected is probably a many dimensional problem. Not just dysfunction but specific location of disfunction matters. A shift in just a millimeter one way or another may change the symptoms. Indeed, ME may suffer this problem too as different vascular capacities in different places in the brain may lead to different symptoms.
I am a nonstandard type 2 diabetic. I met the technical criteria but my blood tests never looked like they were supposed to once you went to secondary tests. This might go a long way to explaining why.
Well, we might have screwed up lives. We might have had whole life experiences slip past us. We definitely got to see the dark side of exhaustion, pain and brain dysfunction. Yet how many others ever get to understand what it is like to watch the answers unfold to the greatest mystery of our lives?