One of the most important and controversial claims from the PACE Trial was that graded exercise therapy is safe for patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (or ME/CFS, as U.S. government agencies now call it).
“If this treatment is done by skilled people in an appropriate way, it actually is safe and can stand a very good chance of benefiting [patients],” Michael Sharpe, one of the principal PACE investigators, told National Public Radio in 2011, shortly after The Lancet published the first results.
But to many in the ME/CFS community, this safety claim goes against the very essence of the disease. The hallmark of chronic fatigue syndrome, despite the name, is not actually fatigue but the body’s inability to tolerate too much exertion — a phenomenon that has been documented in exercise studies. All other symptoms, like sleep disorders, cognitive impairment, blood pressure regulation problems, and muscle pain, are exacerbated by physical or mental activity. An Institute of Medicine report this year even recommended that the illness be renamed to emphasize this central problem, choosing the name “systemic exertion intolerance disease,” or SEID.
“If this treatment is done by skilled people in an appropriate way, it actually is safe and can stand a very good chance of benefiting [patients],” Michael Sharpe, one of the principal PACE investigators, told National Public Radio in 2011, shortly after The Lancet published the first results.
But to many in the ME/CFS community, this safety claim goes against the very essence of the disease. The hallmark of chronic fatigue syndrome, despite the name, is not actually fatigue but the body’s inability to tolerate too much exertion — a phenomenon that has been documented in exercise studies. All other symptoms, like sleep disorders, cognitive impairment, blood pressure regulation problems, and muscle pain, are exacerbated by physical or mental activity. An Institute of Medicine report this year even recommended that the illness be renamed to emphasize this central problem, choosing the name “systemic exertion intolerance disease,” or SEID.