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Comment by calvin | Hacker News Reader

The “ME” is part of the name now for a reason. They have more information than symptoms alone. ME is the newer name for it, but CFS has been the more commonly used term.

Title for post should be “Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Initiative”

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>ME is the newer name for it

No, actually ME was the old name which was coined in the 1950s. It was eventually dropped in favour of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in the 1990s when it was realised that there typically wasn't brain inflammation, and there wasn't always myalgia.

The term ME was resurrected recently because it is more appealing to some patients, implying a more severe and physical illness.

Incorrect. There are going to be studies showing that inflammation in the pipeline soon, but for now there is the Japanese paper from 2014. You know of it, Mr. 'research.' Melvin Ramsay & his colleagues didn't pull this out of thin air and you know it. Plus, the canard of 'it's more appealing because' is stuff and nonsense, much like the fanciful notions of how much damage stress can actually do. You're on the wrong side of this.

The Japanese study [1] looked at immune (microgial) over-activation in the brain, which is different from actual inflammation of the brain or spinal cord (encephalitis or myelitis). Stress, anxiety and depression from psychosocial stressors are already known to cause neuroinflammation from microglial over-activation [2].

It is a little confusing that they use the term neuroinflammation for something that isn't really inflammation.

[1] http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/55/6/945.long [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5660717/

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