XAND - A Woman's disease?

[Sing]

About the male female differences in incidence, I expect fewer men come forward with this illness until absolutely backed to the wall, due to their masculine conditioning about avoiding any admission of helplessness. Warrior/tough guy stuff.

Secondly, I wonder if there are differences due to the hormonal environments, specifically that of progesterone, which turns a pregnant woman's immune system down in order to accommodate her fetus. That was mentioned by one of the top researchers or doctors who spoke at CFSAC in October, I think. Pregnancy and child rearing are also big energy challenges, stressors too. So those situations could provide access for XMRV to take hold, replicate, etc.

Wouldn't it be interesting if XMRV is equally present in men and women but expressing itself differently in these groups? Maybe more latent in men...

Cecelia

 

[Mark]

If your doctor reads the BMJ, it is no wonder that he would be reluctant to diagnose you with CFS. According to that prestigious journal, what you have is 'Wondering Womb Syndrome'. :

Like you, Countrygirl, I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear about this. Always a bit scary to hear about all the drains our precious research money has been poured down.

 

[Mark]

To echo fresh eyes and athene's answers to robin, I've found a lot of confirmation recently that they're right, people with autism have all the same sort of stuff going on as we do, and that includes my friend with ME and with an autistic son with dietary issues and environmental sensitivities.

I think it's becoming clear that autism and CFS are the same underlying thing, with just a slight difference of emphasis based perhaps on which organs have been infected.

It's important to note that the autism epidemic began mid-80s, but autism existed before that time and was much more 'genetic', so one strong theory is that XMRV can reactivate endogenous retroviruses that have the same effect as autism. In other words, it may be only the new (epidemic) cases of autism that are based on XMRV, and the others are more genetic in origin - there's a mixture of different causes of the same phenomena. Exactly the same applies to the Multiple Sclerosis epidemic, there's the original form and the new XMRV-stimulated form. And of course, if autism and MS, then what else?...

Another key point that's already been mentioned on this thread and/or elsewhere is that autism may result from exposure to XMRV during the young age when a child's brain is still developing, which raises interesting thoughts about the different symptom patterns that may result from different ages of onset.

Finally, I can't help but comment on the 'warrior/tough guy' stuff - I'm incredibly easily provoked by that sort of thing because the language of these matters always tends to be somewhat mocking and condescending (which is perhaps why wiser men than I tend to ignore it). Yes of course your point about that is right Cecilia, and don't worry, I'm not saying I'm offended by you saying it - we do have a lot of pressure (from men and from women) not to be sick, or perhaps rather, to be responsible for dealing with it ourselves and not bothering others with it. Soldiering on appears to be part of what we are, but I'm not prepared to feel inferior about the way I'm built. Like all such questions, a simple analysis of whether a gender difference is a good thing or a bad thing won't do: these matters are all like arguing whether a coin is heads or tails, when of course it's both. I think it's another of those issues which is much talked about, often stated, but more often by women than by men, which is a shame because of course men have the other half of the story which is yet to be told. I'm not saying any more on that though, I've stuck my neck out quite far enough already...

 

[Sing]

To echo fresh eyes and athene's answers to robin, I've found a lot of confirmation recently that they're right, people with autism have all the same sort of stuff going on as we do, and that includes my friend with ME and with an autistic son with dietary issues and environmental sensitivities.

I think it's becoming clear that autism and CFS are the same underlying thing, with just a slight difference of emphasis based perhaps on which organs have been infected.

It's important to note that the autism epidemic began mid-80s, but autism existed before that time and was much more 'genetic', so one strong theory is that XMRV can reactivate endogenous retroviruses that have the same effect as autism. In other words, it may be only the new (epidemic) cases of autism that are based on XMRV, and the others are more genetic in origin - there's a mixture of different causes of the same phenomena. Exactly the same applies to the Multiple Sclerosis epidemic, there's the original form and the new XMRV-stimulated form. And of course, if autism and MS, then what else?...

Another key point that's already been mentioned on this thread and/or elsewhere is that autism may result from exposure to XMRV during the young age when a child's brain is still developing, which raises interesting thoughts about the different symptom patterns that may result from different ages of onset.

Finally, I can't help but comment on the 'warrior/tough guy' stuff - I'm incredibly easily provoked by that sort of thing because the language of these matters always tends to be somewhat mocking and condescending (which is perhaps why wiser men than I tend to ignore it). Yes of course your point about that is right Cecilia, and don't worry, I'm not saying I'm offended by you saying it - we do have a lot of pressure (from men and from women) not to be sick, or perhaps rather, to be responsible for dealing with it ourselves and not bothering others with it. Soldiering on appears to be part of what we are, but I'm not prepared to feel inferior about the way I'm built. Like all such questions, a simple analysis of whether a gender difference is a good thing or a bad thing won't do: these matters are all like arguing whether a coin is heads or tails, when of course it's both. I think it's another of those issues which is much talked about, often stated, but more often by women than by men, which is a shame because of course men have the other half of the story which is yet to be told. I'm not saying any more on that though, I've stuck my neck out quite far enough already...

Dear Mark,

This is where my writing didn't convey my feeling. I never felt condescending, saying this. I like men for their warrior kinds of aspects. These are great human qualities, if I were to judge them from the outside. I actually learned to be this way myself from a father who had been greatly tested in WWII and who trained all his children to be strong, in case our life situation got really tough like that again. He always kept a big knapsack packed at the foot of his bed in case of emergency and gave us some pretty good survival training too.

Yeah, I don't like women putting down men anymore than I like cultural sexism directed against females. We don't make any progress this way!

I am sorry you got upset and I can understand why.

Cecelia

 

[Mark]

I wasn't exactly upset Cecilia, and certainly not at you, it was more that the specific words you used reminded me of a certain tone I've often been used to hearing when those words are used, which tends to wind me up. It's nice to hear you meant them in the exact opposite way and totally get what I'm talking about. Those survival instincts of your dad are valuable to you now no doubt.

Athene, as to whether the differences in these matters in Italian culture prove those aspects, that sounds a bit like a nature v nurture debate to me, to which my response tends to be to ramble on about arguments over which of the two sides of a coin is best. But I would be extremely interested to see that sort of data - broken down by country, male/female rates and incidence rates of autism, cfs etc. Or a paper surveying that data. I've looked a bit but didn't find the info I was after.

 

[Samuel]

Seems likely that that was not gathered using Canadian from Italians by nondenialists.

 

[Mark]

The whole discussion has been nature (biological explanation for different gender ratio) vs. nurture (CFS more widely reported in women because more socially acceptable) from the start! It's too late to complain now!!!

Just that there's always an element of both and so much rubbish talked around such areas - not here you understand, just in general.

Anyway I checked the Italian national CFS website and they say it is commoner mong women than men. They also say it is far and away most common among middle aged people and "unknown among the elderly".... which certainly doesn't fit what I know. Hmm.

Interesting data, rather unusual. Tends against theories such as "women go to their doctors more often" given what we've observed about Italian gender culture being almost opposite in certain respects to the US and UK data. So it could be read as confirming that the gender difference is biological. However another reading is that the doctor's book says it's a condition affecting middle-aged women so that's what he diagnoses. Perhaps elderly people all manage to get some other diagnosis there?