A very interesting story, Avenger.
My first thought on reading it was that although full D-lactic acidosis like you experienced might be quite rare, and is almost certainly not the cause of ME/CFS in general, it is quite possible that some ME/CFS patients might have D-lactic acid-producing bacteria in their guts which may be exacerbating their ME/CFS symptoms.
Indeed,
one study by KDM et al found that ME/CFS patients have higher amounts of D-lactic acid-producing bacteria.
It has been demonstrated in
this study that D-lactic acid acts to block energy metabolism in brain and heart (but not liver) mitochondria. It is hypothesized this is due to D-lactic acid interfering with the utilization of L-lactate and pyruvate in mitochondria, leading to impairments in mitochondrial energy metabolism.
And this likely explains why D-lactic acid produces symptoms that closely resemble those of ME/CFS, since there is evidence to indicate mitochondrial energy metabolism is also impaired in ME/CFS.
So could lots of ME/CFS patients have D-lactic acid-producing bacteria in their guts which are adding to the burden of their symptoms?
Well,
this interesting article about D-lactic acid ME/CFS says:
So it seems that most people
do possess the D-lactate dehydrogenase enzyme which breaks down D-lactate dehydrogenase, and would thus not be susceptible (or less susceptible) to D-lactic acid toxicity.
In other words, even if you have high levels of D-lactic acid-producing bacteria in your guts, and D-lactic acid in your bloodstream, this may not on its own cause problems, unless you are also one of the very small percentage of the population who are unable to properly metabolize D-lactic acid, because you don't have sufficient mitochondrial D-lactate dehydrogenase.
Thus it might be interesting to do some further research, and find out if there are any known SNP genetic alleles (mutations) which lead to impaired D-lactate dehydrogenase production.
It would be good if people could look up their D-lactate dehydrogenase SNPs on 23andme.com, and work out whether they are one of the very small percentage of the population who are at risk of developing D-lactic acidosis, or milder issues with D-lactic acid, because they do not produce sufficient D-lactate dehydrogenase.