By David Tuller, DrPH
Last week, the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine published a paper called “Replicated blood-based biomarkers for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis not explicable by inactivity,” from a team at the University of Edinburgh. (I wrote about it here.) According to a press release from the university, “The largest ever biological study of ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) has identified consistent blood differences associated with chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, and liver disease.”
The work involved collaboration between the university’s Institute of Genetics and Cancer and the Schools of Mathematics and Informatics. The senior investigator, geneticist Chris Ponting, is also the lead investigator of DecodeME, a genome-wide association study that is expected to report its findings later this year.
For this study, Professor Ponting and his colleagues relied on the UK Biobank, a massive healthcare database with information on more than 500,000 people. In their analysis, they compared data on more than 3000 blood-based biomarkers from almost 1500 people who reported having received an ME/CFS-related diagnosis to data from more than 130,000 controls. They identified 116 markers that differed between the two groups and were significant in both male and female patients. They also reported that the findings were not impacted by levels of activity–a blow to the unproven theory that deconditioning is key to causing the symptoms.
Earlier today, I spoke with mathematician Sjoerd Beentjes, the lead author, about the study’s findings and implications. (Along with Dr Beentjes and Professor Ponting, a third co-author, Dr Ava Khamseh, contributed equally.)