Dr Cheney's keynote presentation at the 2007 IACFS Conference

[Guest guest]

Hi, all.

I just talked to my healthy friend, Potter, who attended

Thursday nights 2007 IACFS conference banquet on my behalf(nice to

have friends living near the vacinity of important conferences like

this to get the early scoop!). Anyway, he actually got the keynote

presention at this banquet featuring Dr Cheney, M.D., Ph.D.,

video taped for me(I haven't reviewed it yet), but was able to

communicate fairly effectively the gist of what happened in this

presentation.

This communication allows me to offer you my impression of what the

hole in the heart issue(called a PFO) is all about in CFS and how to

heal or totally eliminate its possible negative impact, something I

think many of you might appreciate. Of course it should be noted that

the physician's and researcher's section of the 2007 IACFS conference

is still proceding up through Sunday and my complete review of Dr

Cheney's presentation may yield more insight, but that said, follows

is what I'm gathering cuts to the chase on the state of the art in CFS.

One, Dr Cheney has further deepened his understanding about the

details of the mechanisms following the acquired diastolic heart

dysfunction that happens in many PWCs, with the finding that possibly

all PWCs have a PFO(hole in the heart like that found in roughly

20-30% of the normal population). And this finding of PFOs in PWCs

Dr Cheney believes, probably accurately so from my layman's point of

view, worsens or increases in size as result of the underlying

pathology of CFS and not the other way around.

Two, Dr Cheney still has not yet solved in his own mind the cause of

the energy deficit within the cells of PWCs hearts that leads to CFS

diastolic heart dysfunction and the noted downstream

PFO size expansion. Apparently this remaining gap in his knowledge

left several attendees, including fellow CFS researcher, Rich Van

Konynenburg, Ph.D., and others, in a state of befuddlement following

his presentation, as the solution to this heart cell energy deficit in

CFS seems rather apparent to them at this point.

As many of you know, Rich stands clear that it is the glutathione

depletion-methylation block issue in PWCs that is the cause of their

heart cell energy deficit, their diastolic heart dysfunction and all

other known CFS related symptoms they may have. FWIW and in my own

experience given some good quantifiable improvements in my own case

from doing treatments consistent with this hypothesis, I think Rich

has nailed the pathogenesis or root cause of CFS.

More details need to be learned and further duplication of findings

needs to be done for everything from CFS pathogenesis to end-stage

pathophysiology, diastolic cardiomyopathy being an example of this, in

the research community. Nevertheless, it appears this so far

unshakeable hypothesis of cause by Rich is the CFS ringer!

This naturally suggests treatment paths, several that have been

discussed on this list and others, with the Yasko treatment approach

being one of the lastest and possibly most comprehensive plan

available to date. I think following this approach or other treatment

paths consistent with Rich's glutathione depletion-methylation block

hypothesis will eliminate the CFS heart cell energy deficit, the

diastolic heart dysfunction that follows and in result reduce to

benign size if not complete closure the PFOs currently being found in

PWCs.

This is the state of the art in CFS.