Comment by Llamamoe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Llamamoe | Hacker News Reader

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You're on the nose. Dismissing mystery symptoms like this is doctor 101. As it happens we do have research on ME/CFS causes and biomarkers such as gut dysbiosis toxins[1], deficient SCFA production[2], elevated rates of enterovirus[3] and herpesvirus[4](particularly EBV, HHV-6 and -7) infections. Coincidentally, every single of those things is associated with dementia in old age.

Absolutely everything points at the origin of CFS being down to ongoing infections causing immune response, mitochondrial dysfunction, and sickness behavior. OP's "central sensitisation syndrome" is akin to 19th century's "female hysteria".

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8960409/?report...

[2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.27.21265575v...

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20170809125253id_/http://enterov...

[4] https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S13866532067000...

I just want to clarify that I absolutely agree that there are a multitude of pathophysiologoc changes in cfsers, including mitochondrial dysfunction, hrv changes, ongoing viral reactivations, deranged cytokines etc. I think the difference in our opinions is just that I my opinion, these physiological changes are downstream of cns dynamics in the lateral frontal pole, pituitary gland, amygdala, and cerebral cortex. At any rate - thanks for your thoughts.

I'm not convinced. The human brain is an organ like any other- evolution had vested interest in keeping its function adaptive, and to this extent even social stress induced depression and vulnerability are adaptive responses. Most severe chronic illness - mental or otherwise - isn't.

Thanks for your response - I see cfs as the result of almost “wear and tear” on the system. I think the “push-through” approach to life that many cfsers had prior to developing the disorder is very adaptive. I often meet v cfsers who had been v high functioning in their careers. It’s just that the adaptive response is not sustainable long term for some people…thanks for listening and cheers!

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