If you go down to the woods today ...

Well, actually it was yesterday, but that didn't quite work, poetically. Anyway, if you had, you would have met Lenny & Lucy, two of the loveliest characters it has ever been my pleasure to meet. And yes, I did get them to sit nicely like that to have their photo taken. It was the best of three takes.

Oh, the "big surprise" yesterday was finally meeting the local authority grass mowing team in the water meadow.

Impaired Language in Fibromyalgia & CFS

How often do you find yourself searching your brain for a simple word that you just can't remember? Do you have problems writing, or understanding things you read or hear? If so, you're certainly not alone! This kind of language impairment is a symptom of both fibromyalgia (FMS) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME/CFS).



Impaired Language in Fibromyalgia & CFS

Tea-Time at Simmaron I: Mady Hornig on the "Peterson Subsets", Immune Exhaustion and New Gut Findings In ME/CFS

In her presentation, Dr. Hornig first reviewed the recent finding from the Chronic Fatigue Initiative-funded study run by the Columbia team: massive immune up regulation in short duration ME/CFS patients and immune down regulation in longer duration ME/CFS patients.  The same immune factors, interestingly enough, that were upregulated early in the illness were squashed later in the illness. One key viral fighter called IFN-y that was hugely important in early ME/CFS but significantly down regulated in later ME/CFS pointed an arrow at a process called “immune exhaustion”.



Columbia’s Center for Infection and Immunity has  completed the testing of samples from 50 patients and 50 healthy controls started in the CFI study and extended in an NIH-funded study to analyze ME/CFS microbiome. They are completing analysis of the samples now.

They’re finding evidence of significant changes in the gut flora of ME/CFS patients vs healthy controls. For one, altered levels of butyrate producing bacteria have been found in the ME/CFS patients. Noting that similar differences have been found in autoimmune diseases, Dr. Hornig proposed that an autoimmune process may be fueling the symptoms in a subset of patients.



Tea-Time at Simmaron I: Mady Hornig on the "Peterson Subsets", Immune Exhaustion and New Gut Findings In ME/CFS - Simmaron ResearchSimmaron Research

Inflammatory response may fan the flame of dietary fats' role in obesity-related diseases: Study supports merits of Mediterranean diet -- ScienceDaily

Another study confirming the merits of the Mediterranean diet, not just for weight loss (and generally), but also in relation to the prevention and management of chronic diseases:

A new study in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry demonstrates that ingesting fats similar to those in a Mediterranean-type diet, featuring low saturated fat and high monounsaturated fat, appears to decrease the inflammatory response, both in comparison to a high saturated fat diet, as well as in relation to a low-fat diet.

Inflammatory response may fan the flame of dietary fats' role in obesity-related diseases: Study supports merits of Mediterranean diet -- ScienceDaily

How Walking to Bathroom Can Be Harder Than Running a Marathon: A Doctor's ME/CFS Case Study

Talking about taking research into your own hands. Mark Vink is a physician in the Netherlands who suddenly fell ill with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). He wasn’t just your typical physician; he also happened to have a brown belt in judo, was the former captain of a Dutch national field hockey championship team and was a marathoner  and triathlete.



In other words, the guy was a stud who loved to test himself physically – the last person anyone would ever expect to get ME/CFS. Or end up bed bound. Or end up using a six yard tramp from his bed to the bathroom to test his exercise capacity.



How Walking to Bathroom Can Be Harder Than Running a Marathon: A Doctor's ME/CFS Case Study

Is ‘portion control’ the right message? Probably not…

The “portion size effect” shown in here can also be used the other way around, to your benefit, e.g. a bigger serving of vegetables to eat more of them. In fact, that’s part of the conclusion which the media and the NHS omitted.



Here’s what the researchers actually wrote in the systematic review (sadly skipped by the news outlets):



Science Catch-up - The Health Sciences Academy

Discovered: the underlying metabolic problem in ME

This study also shows that the two metabolic problems are the result of an impaired oxygen uptake into the muscle cells or their mitochondria and in combination with the Norwegian Rituximab studies, which suggest that ME is an autoimmune disease, it is suggestive that antibodies are directly or indirectly blocking the oxygen uptake into the muscle cells or their mitochondria.



Discovered: the underlying metabolic problem in ME

Spinning Fibromyalgia: Brain Findings Suggest Dopamine May Be Key

Everyone comes to a disease with their own preconceptions. That fact never seemed more true than in this Canadian fibromyalgia brain study.  The researchers asked a good question and got a good answer and then made an interesting interpretation.



Although the interpretation may leave something to be desired the finding was fascinating and potentially important for FM patients and possibly people with ME/CFS as well.



Spinning Fibromyalgia: Brain Findings Suggest Dopamine May Be Key

Low-carb or low-fat for weight loss? Health writers get it wrong (again!)

The BBC announced that low-fat diets are better than cutting carbs for weight loss.



But the Daily Mail wrote: low-carb is best for weight loss. The opposite!



When I dug into these clashing news articles, I noticed they were talking about the same scientific study… Confused?



Well, I was. How is it possible that the journalists concluded the opposite by looking at the same study?



Science Catch-up - The Health Sciences Academy

Cellular Havoc: Zeroing In On The Sleep Problems in Fibromyalgia?

This group focused on alpha-delta sleep wave problems. These sleep wave problems were identified in FM over forty years ago. Alpha waves are higher frequency waves that are associated, interestingly enough, with states of relaxation during wakefulness. When they occur during sleep they’re believed to produce mini arousals that pop people experiencing them out of deeper sleep stages . Alpha waves are not unusual; they are present during sleep in healthy people, but the extent of alpha wave “intrusions” found in fibromyalgia appears to be unusual.



Cellular Havoc: Zeroing In On The Sleep Problems in Fibromyalgia?