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Naviaux et. al.: Metabolic features of chronic fatigue syndrome

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Would like to hear your thoughts on it @alex3619.


B
I have to slowly go through it first. That might take days. However I started my journey into ME and CFS biochemistry looking at metabolites, my only "published" piece was about metabolites, and during the 90s there was a lot of metabolic research going on here in Australia, and I talked to a few of those researchers.

I hope to say more soon.
 

Sidereal

Senior Member
Messages
4,856
“Despite the heterogeneity of CFS, the diversity of factors that lead to this condition, our findings show that the cellular metabolic response is the same in patients,” said Naviaux. “And interestingly, it’s chemically similar to the dauer state you see in some organisms, which kicks in when environmental stresses trigger a slow-down in metabolism to permit survival under conditions that might otherwise cause cell death. In CFS, this slow-down comes at the cost of long-term pain and disability.”

This is actually what Cheney has been saying for many years.
 

Mary

Moderator Resource
Messages
17,334
Location
Southern California
This is fabulous. I note they mention BCAAs:

"Branch Chain Amino Acid Metabolic Intermediates Were Decreased."

and it was almost two years ago that I discovered that BCAAs decreased my PEM recovery time by half --- (I've posted about this before with links to studies which led me to taking BCAAs - I still take them, am afraid to stop!)
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
OK, who'd heard of 'dauer' before? o_O

Interestingly ME/CFS metabolic pathways were the opposite of metabolic syndrome and also cell danger response, as per table 5.
Naviaux et al. said:
Metabolic Similarities Between CFS and Dauer.
Many of the pathways and metabolites that were abnormal in CFS are also known to be features of dauer, a well-studied, long-lived survival and persistence state triggered by environmental stress (35, 36) (Table 5). Interestingly, we found that the direction of CFS abnormalities was opposite to metabolic syndrome (37) and opposite to the metabolic response to infection, inflammation, or environmental stress that has been called the CDR (7). For example, cholesterol, phospholipid, sphingolipid, and purine metabolism are all decreased in CFS and dauer but are increased in metabolic syndrome and the stereotyped CDR (Table 5). These facts suggest that CFS is an evolutionarily conserved, genetically regulated, hypometabolic state similar to dauer that permits survival and persistence under conditions of environmental stress but at the cost of severely curtailed function and quality of life.
 
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Groggy Doggy

Guest
Messages
1,130
It's a wish list item, but would be nice to get an audio version. Due to my metabolic sourced cognitive issues, it helps me to both 'hear it' and then 'read it'; they reinforce each other. I usually have to read something at least 3 times before it makes any sense :(
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
"Dauer": Does it mean that we're an evolutionary throwback to an invertebrate with a larvae stage of development?! :sluggish: :eek: We might be feeble but we are supreme at toughing-out and surviving harsh environmental conditions! :ninja::smug: Well... perhaps... o_O (Or we would be if we were larvae!) :sluggish::sluggish::sluggish:

Forgive my frivolity. I am actually enjoying the paper, and taking it seriously. It's very interesting.
 

Marky90

Science breeds knowledge, opinion breeds ignorance
Messages
1,253
Just got through the paper

These findings in my eyes are IMMENSE

First of: Good use of criteria, patients from all over USA, a good mix of men and women.
Secondly: Metabolic abnormalities were consistent regardless of trigger
Third: There were LOADS of metabolic abnormalities, and they were opposite of what you se in metabolic syndrome and cell danger response (hypermetabolic states)
Fourth: They concluded that ME is a hypometabolic state, with a profile similar to the medically recognised survival state of "dauer", which occurs when humans experience extreme circumstances where it may die if it not change its metabolism. E.g. in extremely cold conditions, or in states of extreme hunger. ME could in other words be a evolutionary conserved hypometabolic state remniscent of this, that for some reason occurs in response to other triggers together with genetic predispositions.
Fifth: Only 25 % of the abnormalities were needed to diagnose ME/CFS, the other 75 % were individual and could potentially be used for personalized medicine.
Sixth: ME could based on these abnormalities be diagnosed with 90 % certainty.

Spread it to the papers people! I am pumped. This is an incredibly exciting alternative to the autoimmune theory (or even a downstream metabolic profile of autoimmunity that has nothing to do with "dauer" like states), possibly; another disease mechanism under the ME/CFS umbrella.

More importantly it pawes the way for new research, and strongly indicates that ME is a serious multi-systemic disease.!
 

Ben H

OMF Volunteer Correspondent
Messages
1,131
Location
U.K.
This certainly is a good lesson in learning not to get too attached to one theory. Replications will be needed. Individual results will vary.

Indeed!! But there is more to it than this, CDR is quite complex in this respect, stay tuned, will post soon :)

P.s replication is already underway with samples already collected by OMF and Naviaux/Gordon etc. The next phase (replication etc) is well underway!


B
 

hixxy

Senior Member
Messages
1,229
Location
Australia
The low sphingolipid profile in CFS appears to be an adaptive response that is opposite to the increased sphingolipids observed in metabolic syndrome (11) and the acute cell danger response (CDR) (7) and ultimately may represent a fundamental response to oppose the spread of persistent viral and intracellular bacterial infections.
Uhhhh....

This pattern is opposite to that seen in response to acute infection and the CDR (12) and metabolic syndrome (13).​

Oh?

Interestingly, we found that the direction of CFS abnormalities was opposite to metabolic syndrome (37) and opposite to the metabolic response to infection, inflammation, or environmental stress that has been called the CDR (7).
Huh??? Here I was anticipating a confirmation of CDR and we get the opposite.

Has anyone found a explanation of dauer that isn't about nematodes (pretty sure I'm not a nematode ...)
 

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
Indeed!! But there is more to it than this, CDR is quite complex in this respect, stay tuned, will post soon :)

P.s replication is already underway with samples already collected by OMF and Naviaux/Gordon etc. The next phase (replication etc) is well underway!


B
I mean a complete (independant) replication, not from the same authors and not using the same labs