Major development: Myhill et al. mitochondrial dysfunction paper published

[Guest guest]

Hi, all.

Dr. Myhill and coauthors have just published a paper on

mitochondrial dysfunction in CFS. They found that there is mito

dysfunction in CFS, and that the degree of this dysfunction is

correlated with the degree of disability of PWCs. A pdf of the paper

is available here free:

http://www.ijcem.com/files/IJCEM812001.pdf

In my opinion, this is a landmark development in CFS research. It

shows that the fatigue in CFS is traceable to problems in the basic

powerplants of the cells of the body. This should draw the attention

of the CFS research community to the fundamental biochemistry of

metabolism, and it should also be a powerful bulwark against the

wrongheaded view that CFS is a psychiatric disorder, which is

particularly dominant in the UK.

The next step is to establish what is causing the mito dysfunction in

CFS. There are some competing ideas about this among Dr. Cheney,

Professor Pall, myself, and others, and hopefully we will be able to

shake them down and see which one or ones hold up to scrutiny soon.

As many of you know, my view is that the mito dysfunction is caused

by glutathione depletion in the mitochondria, and I believe that this

leads to the whole range of problems that Dr. MacLaren , one of

the authors of this paper, has found in the mitochondria of PWCs with

his lab testing, now at Acumen Lab in the UK.

There is now good evidence that treating to correct the partial block

in the methylation cycle will raise the glutathione levels in CFS, as

it does in autism, and recently we (and I) have been hearing from a

small number of PWCs who report that after methylation cycle block

treatment their energy levels are coming back up, and some have been

able to return to work. This can take many months, but it is

definitely happening, at least in a few cases so far. We need many

more cases to draw conclusions about this, but so far, so good.

It is rare that a really worthwhile paper about CFS research comes

out, and in my opinion, this is one of those rare moments!

Rich