Hornig/Lipkin cytokine study out now - press release

[lansbergen]

So could a possible downstream effect explain the differences?

I think it fits my observation I need the flares to improve and to severe flares do not give that benefit but make it worse. .

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Any thoughts, @Jonathan Edwards?

This is basically the dataset that Mady presented last May at IiME and I have been thinking about it for some time. Analysis is not easy but I believe this result, and there are not many results in ME that I do. I think it is a genuine quantum leap in terms of showing a biological abnormality. The changes are quite subtle and that is one of the things that makes them credible. IL-8 is up again but not 1000 times too high as some of the commercial labs seem to suggest. The study seems to be telling us very clearly that if we want to find out about the inflammatory side of ME we can only expect to find it early on.

The Science Media Centre seemed to have excelled themselves in missing the point.

The crucial difference with this study is that it is not a study that tries to get results that fit with a pet theory. It is a study that went out looking for what was there. And something did seem to be there.

 

[Gingergrrl]

@Gingergrrl, here's what the SMC say about themselves. Someone else will no doubt be able to enlighten you about the connections behind the scenes.

I can only imagine what they must do behind the scenes and am sure others will inform me. Is there anything comparable to this center in the U.S.? I am still trying to put it into some kind of context to figure it out!

But back to the topic which is the amazing article and research by Dr. Lipkin and Dr. Hornig ... A million gold stars are not enough to express my gratitude.

 

[ukxmrv]

Yeah, and the first person they interview about the results is a psychologist

That's because the Science Media Centre probably had an embargoed copy of the paper days ago and were able to approach UK media/ newspapers and get their own people into position before we patients knew anything about this.

 

[halcyon]

What I meant was that this huge cytokine study didn't replicate the findings of cytokine differences between patients and controls seen in many smaller studies, and that was a surprise, to me anyway, and I suspect to the authors too.

There have been so many studies on elevated cytokines in CFS, this study has to replicate some of those old findings.

These findings are interesting in the context of persistent infections, such as with enteroviruses. I know that Dr. Chia has found some of these same cytokines elevated in his patients. In vitro experiments with persistent enterovirus infections have found elevations of IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-α. The same cytokines found to be high here in this study in short duration patients.

 

[msf]

Wow, those are some amazingly consistent results. Prof. Edwards, is it normal for cytokine levels to be closely linked? And does that suggest what kind of illness it might be?

 

[A.B.]

The Science Media Centre seemed to have excelled themselves in missing the point.

We patients are clearly telepathically conspiring to force the immune system to dysfunction according to precise patterns in our attempt to emotionally communicate our repressed childhood traumas while faking illness unbeknownst to ourselves.

Fortunately there are geniuses such as Wessely, White, and Chalder who can see through our deceptions and save us from ourselves.

 

[Ecoclimber]

What’s amazing is that the news media immediately first response is to reach out to the UK psychiatrists for their analysis...Reuters. Suddenly, UK scientists pull their biomedical card of replication and refer back to the xmrv debacle. The hypocrisy of the comments from the UK psychiatrists on Lipkin’s research study is dripping so much that I would be surprised they are not literally drowning in them!

Michael Sharpe, a professor of psychological medicine, at Britain's Oxford University said the finding was "potentially interesting" but added: "This type of study (a case-control study) is notorious for producing findings that other researchers subsequently fail to replicate." Whilst this finding that some patients with CFS/ME have an immune abnormality is potentially interesting, we should treat it with great caution.

In a similar tone, Stephen Lawrie, an Edinburgh University psychiatry expert, said Hornig's team may well have found different immune profiles at different stages of the disease, but added this could be "down to chance and hence a false positive signal".

Prof Paul Morgan, Professor of Inflammation, Skin and Joint Disease, Institute of Infection and Immunity, Cardiff University, added: A biomarker of CFS has long been sought as a means of adding substance to a difficult and controversial clinical diagnosis. Inflammatory cytokine markers have been described but have failed to replicate.
“Independent verification in larger sample sets is an essential first step, particularly in an area so heavily littered with blind alleys.”

Yet they do not apply the same rigor of analysis to the PaceTrial. It reminds me of the strategy criminal trial attorneys use in blaming the dead victim for the cause of their murder.

The Science Media Center will be in full combat mode to attack the Lipkin's paper.

Tweet this The same analysis for the Lpkin's paper applies to the PaceTrial. Without Replication, no Pontification. Without the release of data, PaceTrial results are litered with false positives.

 

[Wildcat]

.
Trolls out in the Telegraph Comments - a double act -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/sci...s-real-found-by-scientists.html#disqus_thread

 

[Wally]

This song keeps playing over and over in my head.

 

[msf]

Just a thought, perhaps the researchers were still dealing with a heterogeneous group, and this is why the difference between patients and controls barely reached significance? I noticed that Fukuda-only patients seem to have been included in the study.

 

[Antares in NYC]

We patients are clearly telepathically conspiring to force the immune system to dysfunction according to precise patterns in our attempt to emotionally communicate our repressed childhood traumas while faking illness unbeknownst to ourselves.
Fortunately there are geniuses such as Wessely, White, and Chalder who can see through our deceptions and save us from ourselves.

That was... beautiful...

Very funny, in a bittersweet kind of way.

 

[Sushi]

Has this been posted?
From the Microbe Discovery Project:

Drs Lipkin, Hornig and colleagues discover robust evidence that chronic fatigue syndrome is a biological illness
February 27, 2015
The researchers and team at CII would like to dedicate this paper as a tribute to the life of Vanessa Li.

Breaking news from Columbia scientists, press release 2pm EST today:

 

[Wally]

Another song for the psychobabblers.

 

[Wally]

O.K.!!! Do you think they are ready to start waking up????

 

[Simon]

This is basically the dataset that Mady presented last May at IiME and I have been thinking about it for some time. Analysis is not easy but I believe this result, and there are not many results in ME that I do.

I think it is a genuine quantum leap in terms of showing a biological abnormality. The changes are quite subtle and that is one of the things that makes them credible. IL-8 is up again but not 1000 times too high as some of the commercial labs seem to suggest.

The study seems to be telling us very clearly that if we want to find out about the inflammatory side of ME we can only expect to find it early on.

Just to be clear, you are saying that the modest changes in cytokine levels are likely to be biologically significant, as well as statistically significant? (Though the mean changes might be masking much bigger changes for substantial numbers of individuals).

 

[SOC]

What a crappy headline.

Well it came out of London, so who's surprised?

Annoyed, yes. Surprised, no. Sigh.....

 

[SOC]

I'm still puzzled about what this research means for long-term patients.

I'm thrilled at the evidence of something clearly, demonstrably wrong with our immune systems early in the illness, but I'm a little nervous that it's not clear what's going on later in the illness.

 

[halcyon]

I'm thrilled at the evidence of something clearly, demonstrably wrong with out immune systems early in the illness, but I'm a little nervous that it's not clear what's going on later in the illness.

I agree, it raises more questions than answers. On first blush, it's interesting to think about how many symptoms of ME are the same as those of certain cytokines administered in excess (fatigue, fevers, sickness behavior, tachycardia, cognitive dysfunction, etc.) but that doesn't explain why people sick > 3 years would continue to have these same symptoms if their cytokine levels drop below that of healthy people.

 

[Gingergrrl]

@SOC It is also difficult for some of us to calculate the three year mark. I had mono in March 2012 so I am basically at the three year mark now.

But I recovered from mono and my current illness began with a second infection ten months later (Jan 2013) which I never recovered from. So by that calculation I am not at three year mark until Jan 2016.

Very confusing!