Morten Group Oxford video details their research: the cause of PEM, mitochondria, leaky gut, L-form bacteria, Raman spectroscopy, etc

[Hip]

A new Morten Group Oxford video details the various angles they are taking on ME/CFS research.

The Morten Group are doing lots of interesting ME/CFS work:

• Mechanisms behind PEM
• Factors in the blood that influence mitochondrial function
• Bacterial toxins
• The role of microbes in the gut in ME/CFS
• Intestinal hyperpermeability (leaky gut) in ME/CFS patients
• L-form bacteria in the tissues of ME/CFS patients
• Raman spectroscopy of the blood of ME/CFS patients
• The possibility that in the brain, ATP may mainly be produced by the myelin sheath, not the mitochondria

Website: www.mortengroup.org.uk
Twitter: twitter.com/OxMEDiscovery
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mortengroupoxford
Their donation page here

The Morten Group were one of the four research organizations to find "something in the serum" of ME/CFS patients:

Dr Morten revealed how when examining mitochondrial function, they took blood plasma from ME/CFS patients and added it to healthy muscle cells, and this resulted in a startling effect on the cells ability to absorb oxygen. They are continuing with work in this area and hope to determine why the energetics of the cells are affected in this way.

Source: here

The other researchers who found "something in the serum" are detailed in this thread.

 

[Reading_Steiner]

So they were only founded after Rons nanoneedle became operational ? I didn't know that.

 

[andyguitar]

The Morten Group were one of the four research organizations to find "something in the serum" of ME/CFS patients:

Sounds interesting @Hip different research groups looking at the same thing.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Karl Morten's group is fundraising for their research!
https://www.development.ox.ac.uk/mecfs

Understanding the causes of ME/CFS

Dr Karl Morten at the University of Oxford is focusing his research on ME/CFS, Long Covid, Chronic Lyme Disease, PANS PANDAS and how these illnesses may connect to each other.

We are seeking funding for five projects:

1. ME/CFS patients treated with extremely low cold dry air temperatures show improvement for 3 months, but decline by 12 months. Can we identify what is changing in their blood and test if this causes symptom changes?
2. Blood associated PBMC miRNA and extracellular vesicles show promise as potential biomarkers when comparing severe ME/CFS patient with controls. We will run a validation study with mild and moderately affected patients.
3. Expand testing to take more samples longitudinally, with clinical assessment using wearable monitors. This will involve our current clinical ME/CFS, Chronic Lyme and Long Covid research project aiming to identify possible causal factors.
4. A Pilot study in Long Covid looking for alterations in blood extracellular vesicles and PBMCs.
5. Searching for bacteria, fungal and viral pathogens in PANS PANDAS patients.

To learn more about these projects, please visit Dr Morten’s Oxford University webpage and the Morten Group webpage.

100% of your donation will be directed to your chosen area of research. With your support, we can make a life-changing impact on people suffering from these debilitating conditions.https://www.development.ox.ac.uk/donation-basket?id=db35f005-3a30-413d-95bb-e4094234dd4f

 

[Treeman]

I watched the long video over 3 visits (still manage to fall to sleep during the third). They mention differing types of antibiotics to treat the smouldering infection (if I'm not mistaken). Does anyone know which antibiotics that they believed would be the best. Thanks.

I ask because this was one thing the immunologist I saw talked about, but never actually did it.

 

[Wishful]

@Hip , regarding their research into mitochondria, this new tool might be of use:

https://newatlas.com/medical/mitochondrial-transplant-breakthrough-cells/

"This tiny tool enables the scientists to pierce the membrane of healthy cells, suck up the spherical mitochondria, pierce the membrane of a damaged cell and place the mitochondria in its new home. It does so with the help of laser light to precisely control the syringe's position and pressure regulators that adjust its flow, enabling the transfer of incredibly small volumes of fluid."

I'm not sure how this tool would best be used for ME research, but it might be interesting to transfer an ME patient's mitochondria and transplant it into a control's cell, or vice-versa.

 

[Hip]

I'm not sure how this tool would best be used for ME research, but it might be interesting to transfer an ME patient's mitochondria and transplant it into a control's cell, or vice-versa.

Very interesting new technique. Though I suspect a mitochondrial transplant into a cell might only rejuvenate the cell if the existing mitochondria had genetic damage. In ME/CFS, the "something in the serum" findings suggest the mitochondria are fine, but an unidentified factor in the blood of ME/CFS patients is thwarting mitochondrial functioning.

So if you transplanted mitochondria, that same blood factor would probably gunk up the new mitochondria.

(I now wonder whether this mysterious factor in the blood might be the bacterial toxins Dr Markov claims to have found in the blood of ME/CFS patients).

 

[Rufous McKinney]

but it might be interesting to transfer an ME patient's mitochondria and transplant it into a control's cell, or vice-versa.

that would be fascinating!

 

[VisualEffect]

Why researchers can’t just study why pwME have impaired brain blood circulation and try to find something that can help?
Why even study the blood or some bacteria when disease sits inside the brain. Sorry.

 

[Hip]

Why even study the blood or some bacteria when disease sits inside the brain.

The cause of ME/CFS may have nothing to do with the brain. ME/CFS is a multi-system disease, and many organs are involved, including the brain, the gut, the immune system, autonomic nervous system, mitochondria, the HPA-axis etc. Whatever the cause, it is able to affect all those areas.

 

[VisualEffect]

I don’t know how it is possible that every system in the body is just broken and doesn’t work. That’s just vicious cycle of dysfunctions and how the hell researchers are going to solve this?
Ok, so one option is to treat all those systems independently. Find what’s wrong with gut, immune system, mitochondria and treat it.
It’s already obvious what is going wrong with the brain. Cerebral circulation is broken. Brain cells/mitochondria aren’t getting enough vitamins/micronutrients/aminoacids. Probably gaba/glutamate is messed up. And this causing fatigue, muscle/nerve/joint problems, sleep problems, brain fog, wired feeling. Mystery solved. Why researches can’t study this and trying to find something that can help in the long term???

 

[VisualEffect]

Sorry I mean that no single cause can explain the whole array of broken systems. The gut and immune system and endocrine systems can’t be broken by single cause and it’s impossible to solve the mystery that way.
I’m just random guy without medical or scientific experience, that’s just my thoughts

 

[Wishful]

It’s already obvious what is going wrong with the brain.

It's not quite that obvious. Maybe the cause is a circulation problem; maybe not. I agree that the root cause is most likely in the brain (and that testing blood and muscles is probably wasted resources), but exactly what is wrong is still a mystery. I still think the glial cells are part of the root cause: some imbalance in their function that locks them into an abnormal state.

As for the various other body systems affected, those can all be caused by a single problem in the brain, since they're all interconnected.

 

[Wishful]

Could someone please post the email address for the Morten group? The website is too bloated for my computer to handle, and after several minutes of locking up my computer, I just gave up. I'd like to send them a note about cumin/PEM, and also some feedback about why I gave up trying to view their website.

BTW, doesn't anyone else find that some websites are dreadfully slow to load? Is it just my very slow connection, or is it also my slow, low-memory computer?

 

[Consul]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1517557550174060544

Very interresting!

 

[Rufous McKinney]

That’s just vicious cycle of dysfunctions and how the hell researchers are going to solve this?

we have Got to use Artificial intelligence....and keep returning to it. No one person or one specialty is likely to solve it.

However, fundamentally it feels like an immune system problem. From whence everything else spins off.

so in my case, nothing started out right. On Day 1.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

example of research on this very early stage of Gut and Immune system....

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.01153/full

The Immature Gut Barrier and Its Importance in Establishing Immunity in Newborn Mammals

Excerpt:

"Any disturbances in timing and/or balance of these parallel processes, i.e., intestinal epithelial maturation, luminal microbial colonization and mucosal immune maturation due to, e.g., preterm birth, infection, antibiotic use or nutrient changes during the neonatal period, might affect the establishment of the immune system in the infant."


so I headed into a ditch at One Year old. Massively allergic.

 

[Wishful]

so I headed into a ditch at One Year old. Massively allergic.

Did you do the appropriate infant activities, such as eating dirt and whatever else your little hands encountered? Apparently my sister favoured cigarette butts found on the beach, while I preferred plaster cookies (renovation debris).