From European Psychiatry, 1 August 2014. Abstract presented to the 22nd European Congress of Psychiatry in Munich, 1-4 March 2014.
EPA-0907 – Perceived illness risk in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME) and asthma
M. Martin, I. Alexeeva
Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom,
C.N.G. Dawes
Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Most people perceive their own future as more positive than the average person’s. This optimistic bias may be a concern if it leads to people misjudging health threats and therefore the need for taking preventative steps.
OBJECTIVES
To investigate the generality of recent observations of a reverse, pessimistic bias (i.e., perceiving oneself to be more at risk) in people with Irritable E.
AIMS
The aims are to discover if a pessimistic bias is also found in another psychosomatic condition (CFS/ME) or in another chronic illness (Asthma).
METHODS
CFS/ME and Asthma patients were compared with healthy controls (matched in age and sex) for their perceived risks of health threats (e.g., arthritis) and threats (e.g., being burgled), for self and for others.
RESULTS
The results for the 3 groups are shown in the graph.
CONCLUSIONS
People with CFS/ME tend towards the possession of a pessimistic bias with regard to health threat, but towards an optimistic bias with regard to physical Asthma group tend towards a pessimistic bias with regard to health threat, but tend to be neither optimistic nor pessimistic with regard to physical threat. control group tend towards an optimistic bias with regard to both health and physical threats. Thus, it appears that people with a chronic condition tend toward pessimistic bias, as opposed to the optimistic bias found in the healthy. Materials devised to promote appropriate health-related behaviour may need to be the two different populations.
From PLoS One, 11 August 2014 (Full text available).
DNA Methylation Modifications Associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Wilfred C. de Vega (1), Suzanne D. Vernon (2), Patrick O. McGowan (3)
1) Centre for Environmental Epigenetics and Development, University of Toronto, Scarborough, ON, Canada,
2) Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto, Scarborough, ON, Canada, 3) Department of Cell and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Abstract
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, is a complex multifactorial disease that is characterized by the persistent presence of fatigue and other particular symptoms for a minimum of 6 months. Symptoms fail to dissipate after sufficient rest and have major effects on the daily functioning of CFS sufferers.
CFS is a multi-system disease with a heterogeneous patient population showing a wide variety of functional disabilities and its biological basis remains poorly understood. Stable alterations in gene function in the immune system have been reported in several studies of CFS.
Epigenetic modifications have been implicated in long-term effects on gene function, however, to our knowledge, genome-wide epigenetic modifications associated with CFS have not been explored.
We examined the DNA methylome in peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated from CFS patients and healthy controls using the Illumina HumanMethylation450 BeadChip array, controlling for invariant probes and probes overlapping polymorphic sequences. Gene ontology (GO) and network analysis of differentially methylated genes was performed to determine potential biological pathways showing changes in DNA methylation in CFS.
We found an increased abundance of differentially methylated genes related to the immune response, cellular metabolism, and kinase activity.
Genes associated with immune cell regulation, the largest coordinated enrichment of differentially methylated pathways, showed hypomethylation within promoters and other gene regulatory elements in CFS.
These data are consistent with evidence of multisystem dysregulation in CFS and implicate the involvement of DNA modifications in CFS pathology.
So we are regarded as “pessimistic” about our health? Small wonder when yet again funding seems to be readily available for scientists who insist in labelling CFS/ME as a psychosomatic condition! When any researcher is prepared to discount the vast array of evidence that contradicts his theories and to disregard the decisions of an organisation like the WHO, how on earth are we supposed to take their protocols and their resulting conclusions seriously? I try hard to stay positive and optimistic, but if anything is guaranteed to bring on a wave of pessimism, it is the entrenched attitude of a large number of medical professionals in this country and further afield.
Kailey
I am glad I was not the only one to react to the abstract by Martin and Alexeeva. One struggles to keep positive on a daily basis, and then another grant-hungry psychologist comes along to justify their existence, and upsets the equilibrium. There is so much faux research into ME/CFS as there is so little money for real research. Lots of surveys and questionnaires, but few substantive biochemical/neurological/immunology trials. When you see a review of previous reviews you know the people are just time-wasters. Maybe the ME Association should ‘filter’ the nonsense research out of their weekly summary. The problem then would be they will have no weekly summary!!:-)
By the way. I am feeling optimistic today! My cat is curled-up on my lap! Time for a cuppa!:-)
Right on the mark, kailey. It’s particularly galling to see ME highlighted as a clear case of psychosomatic disorder – apparently, no-one was particularly interested in the controversy surrounding the term, it’s all been decided without us. Again.
With respect to ‘Perceived illness risk in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME) and asthma’
What is ‘Irritable E’?
And where did Prof Martin go to school? Did she even read that conclusion through?
What on earth is “Irritable E”?
A fake ecstacy tab that requires the assistance of a CBT therapist to talk the taker down?
Perhaps the writers of the first paper should have read the second one, before wasting their time and resources.
I agree with all the other comments.
Doctors use the phrase “heartsink patients” to describe people who make repeated visits to their surgeries but for whom no cause of their ill health can be found. Sadly, many people with ME will have been labelled thus in the past.
I suggest the phrase “heartsink” is proudly recycled to denote those psychs who persist in their delusional beliefs that ME is psychosomatic, and trot out their little papers in the face of the ever-increasing wealth of international research which demonstrates otherwise.
Yes, heartsink researchers. You gotta humour them.
From PlosOne – ” ..evidence of multisystem dysregulation in CFS and implicate the involvement of DNA modifications in CFS pathology.”
I’ll summarise that: IMPLICATION OF DNA MODIFICATIONS IN CFS PATHOLOGY.
What factors give rise to measurable DNA modifications? Its an epigenetic study, so I assume that means the factors are environmental ie anything from outside the body that mutates DNA – eg infectious, toxic/manmade chemical, radiation (of any sort not compatible with human bioenergy), vaccination, Let’s focus on this.