Clutching our little maps we gloomily stared at the rain pelting the grey labyrinth that was the NIH. We were utterly lost and very late for our appointment with Dr. Nath, the leader of the NIH Intramural study on ME/CFS.
Thankfully, we eventually found our way and Dr. Nath generously extended his time. No epic news was produced but we learned a lot about a study that is digging so deeply into the biology of its subject that it’s uncovered quite a few rare diseases in the “ME/CFS” patients participating in the study.
Find out more in this Simmaron Research Foundation sponsored blog:
Dr Nath Talks on the ME/CFS NIH Intramural Study
The latest Klimas study is out and…..
Sounds almost the same findings that she put out twenty years ago. Immune dysregulation blah blah, immune regulators to treat blah blah.
Hope I am wrong, but I doubt it!
Agreed. We know it’s immune and we even know how these things start. 30+ years later and we still don’t have one proven treatment or medication.
Matthias where can I find the latest Klimas study? Thnks
Hi Rodrigo as I am a (part time) academic I can access the full paper, but it’s not open access.
This is a very interesting article. Not about CFS but sounds relevant. Has this LKB1, that promotes allergy and affects mitochondria, been studied in cfs?
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-08-allergies-exhausted-regulatory-cells-role.html
Low LKB1 also linked to exercise intolerance:
http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/62/5/1490
So we have low LKB1 linked to increased allergy, mitochondria problems, and reduced exercise tolerance. Sound familiar?
Interesting! Not that I know of.
Hi Cort; great article.
I’m wondering what the evidence for autoimmunity is? I’m hoping Dr. Naith will present the evidence for autoimmunity at the NIH Conference in April. I keep repeating this i.e. rituximab didn’t work; therefore, I assume that this eliminated B-cell (autoantibody) autoimmunity as a common cause of ME. Ron Davis, at the EMERGE Conference in Australia, said the Mark Davis was finding clonal expansion in healthy people. I’m not an expert; however, it seems difficult to be confident that autoimmunity is common in ME – I’m happy to be proved wrong though!
I have heard that other types of autoimmunity (T-cell mediated) can be present. Nath will certainly be looking for autoimmunity (see next blog) but I would be surprised is he’s in a position to report anything yet – but we shall see.