Studies dating back decades indicate that natural killer cells aren’t up to the job of killing infected cells in ME/CFS. Killing isn’t the only thing these cells do, though, the’re also involved in immune functioning.A large study examining the kinds of NK cells present suggests ME/CFS may be an autoimmune/inflammatory disease. Find out more in a Simmaron Research Foundation sponsored post
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they don’t kill because it’s mostly a (non-peripheral) nerves thing, we can’t just grow those back, so the NK’s are prolly doing us a favour?
I was initially in a study 2 years ago. At the time they were drawing a lot of blood for various arenas of CFS. The doctor running the study came in one day and sat down across from me to tell me that I only had 10 killer T cells in my entire body . I really had no clear understanding of what that meant. To this day I am not entirely sure.
Ouch! Whatever it meant your NK cells are really hurting. Where did the study take place?
I was diagnosed with CFS/ME in Houston, TX in 1998. After more than a year of misery and going from doctor to doctor, I went to Dr. Patricia Salvato, who was at that time considered one of the few “experts” in CFS/ME in the entire southwest geographical area. She did an in depth physical exam, asked about symptoms, etc. The MAIN blood test among the many she examined, was my natural killer cell count to nail down the diagnosis. It seems rather, uh, I don’t know, shocking? that in 2018 we’re talking about a NK cell study “pointing to autoimmunity and inflammation in CFS.” Dr. Salvato told me in 1998 that she found when patients were able to get their NK cell count up, they generally greatly improved. However, getting them up, wasn’t such an easy task!