1) fluvoxamine is a serotonin reuptake Inhibitor but it's a bit different than other antidepressants because of its high affinity for sigma-1 receptors. Would be interesting to have a replication study that not only compares fluvoxamine to placebo but another SSRI as well.

1) 🇧🇷 A big trial from Brazil reports that the antidepressant fluvoxamine improved fatigue in Long Covid patients while the diabetes drug Metformin had no effect. The effect of fluvoxamine unfortunately looks quite small and it's unclear if it is clinically significant.

1) 🇧🇪 A new ME/CFS study in Belgium, funded by ME Research UK (MERUK) and the Gordon Parish Charitable Trust. It will explore whether the immune system in people with ME/CFS is exhausted by prolonged activation.

1) Results from the RECOVER trial of Ivabradine for patients with Long Covid and POTS have been shared. While Ivabradine did produce a significant reduction in heart rate compared to placebo, it reportedly did not improve POTS symptom.

1) Looking at a large dataset (n = 4,244 participants) from the Visible app paper. Seems that crashes and symptoms are mostly predicted by symptoms the day before and that biometrics such as heart rate variability add relatively little info to that.

1) 🇩🇪 This German study found that Long Covid patients (n= 128) had less circulating, cell-free mitochondrial DNA than recovered controls (n = 100).

1) Dutch researchers found that transferring antibodies from Long Covid patients into mice caused increased pain sensitivity, which was not seen in mice receiving antibodies from healthy controls.

1) Had a look at Putrino's trial on "Microtesla Magnetic Therapy" for Long Covid. Unfortunately, I don't think the trial shows effectiveness. They used 44 outcomes that weren't pre-registered or corrected for multiple comparisons so differences might simply be due to chance.

Our ME/CFS onset age study gets the usual incisive summary from this team (we found an early peak in adolescence and a later one in early middle age).

Description from Science for ME @scienceforme.bsky.social forum’s weekly update: “This blog post, an overview of research findings on the immune system in ME/CFS patients, concludes that ‘current data do not suggest that (low-grade) inflammation is a key driver of ME/CFS symptoms’” #MEcfs #PwME #CFS

1) Two age peaks: a fascinating paper confirmed two peaks for when people get ME/CFS: around 16 years old and in the mid thirties. The early onset in adolescence was associated with severe ME/CFS, an infectious onset, and having relatives with the disease. A brief summary...

Thread:

Always helpful summaries from @mecfsscience.org

Good long thread.

Some interesting results, many that go against common working assumptions. i hope this inspires lots more research!

Patients were central to the team that found ME/CFS is most likely to start in the teens and early middle age. Two age peaks is unusual for any disease and might help unravel ME's causes. academic.oup.com/ooim/advance... 1/ team credits to follow

A very thorough long read on immune system findings in ME/CFS over the last 40 years

1) 🔬🦠New article: we've made a comprehensive overview of the immune system in ME/CFS, analyzing major studies of the past 40 years. A longread with separate chapters on: - viral persistence - cytokines - neuroinflammation - antibodies - immune cells such as NK, B, and T cells

1) 🇦🇺 There's a big new brain imaging study from the research team of Zack Shan. The findings are very interesting but they do NOT directly point to neuroinflammation in ME/CFS as the paper currently states (the authors plan to correct it). Here's what it does show...

1) Interesting that upregulated TGF-beta signalling was found in this in-depth study on monocytes in Long Covid. It has been the cytokine meest consistently found to be increased in ME/CFS.

I’ve see other accounts like this. There’s a running/“sport science” one I highlighted a while back that posts about fake articles using the same authors, who are real sports science researchers (who are uninvolved). I know one of the “authors” irl and despite him pointing this out, they persist

Useful comments on the new Polybio study on viral persistence 👇

1) New Polybio study reports: "We confirmed the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 Spike transcript and protein in the gut tissue of all LC cases and controls tested." So while RNA and proteins from the virus were present, these were found in controls as well.

1) A Facebook account with more than 100k followers posts about a ME/CFS study from Leiden university, saying that its "targeted probiotic therapy produced complete resolution of fatigue, cognitive impairment, and post-exertional malaise" Except this study doesn't exist...

Interesting research project on ME/CFS and Long Covid 👇 "Our research consultation offers a structured, research-focused review [...] The process begins with an in-depth analysis of the participant’s genetic info, focusing on genes and variants of interest."

If people are interested in being a part of our personalized medicine #MECFS #LongCovid #Genomics research study, we have added additional information on how to go about that here: sites.uab.edu/cgds/mecfs-c...

This is a useful thread, and a bit disappointing, especially regarding not mentioning negative trials or conflicts of interest. I only really looked at Modafinil, since it's one I'm meant to be trying. Though I did get the impression it was just a list of the most common "maybe it will help??"

1) See several problems with the new Long Covid treatment guide by RTHM and Patient-Led Research Collaborative. - It focuses on a social media survey instead of randomized controlled trials - It fails to mention several trials that had negative results. A brief thread 🧵

1) Interesting study showing that a brain infection in mice can lead to loss of synapses and altered excitability of neurons that outlasts the immune response against the virus. Changes are induced by interferon-gamma and involve epigenetic remodelling in the hippocampus.

1) "The absence of neuroinflammation markers is consistent with the hypothesis that persistent long-COVID symptoms are unlikely due to ongoing neuronal injury or central nervous system inflammation" From a Norwegian study that tested 48 LC patients.

Changed our handle to mecfsscience.org, which is the domain name for our website. (previous handle was mecfsskeptic.bsky.social)

1) 🇩🇪 This German study will test the feasibility of home-based diagnostics in patients with severe and very severe ME/CFS (Bell score < 30). They plan to take blood and saliva samples, questionnaires and measurements such as ECG, ultrasound, pupillary responses, HRV, etc.

1) 🇰🇷 A study from South-Korea shows that Metformin (the diabetes drug) and Ursodeoxycholic Acid (a bile acid) are not effective in Long Covid. Most patients improved at lot, even those in the placebo group.

This paper by Karl Tronstad was published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine. We made summary about it below 👇

Congratulations to @sharonhodgsonmp.bsky.social on her new role Minister for Public Health and Prevention. Sharon has been a strong supporter of people with ME/CFS and has spoken in a number of parliamentary debates. Here are some highlights from a debate in 2019.

1) 🇩🇪 This study of hospital employees (HEs) infected with Sars-Cov-2 in three medical centres in Cologne, found that a year later, at least 3.2% meet ME/CFS criteria.

Well done and thanks to the authors of this piece which seems to be well researched 👍👏 Is the RACGP HANDI recommendation of incremental physical activity for chronic fatigue syndrome / myalgic encephalomyelitis harming patients? www1.racgp.org.au/ajgp/2026/ma... #MEcfs #CFS #PwME

1) "Given the lack of sound research support for graded exercise therapy in ME/CFS, the contraindication of graded exercise therapy by best practice guidelines in the US and the UK and patient reports of iatrogenic harm, the RACGP guideline [..] should be withdrawn immediately."

1) A new paper from the Lifelines cohort reports that only 14% of people with ME/CFS received a formal diagnosis.

1) A large study of ca. 2000 ME/CFS patients analyzed post-exertional malaise (PEM) scores and differences between ME/CFS subgroups that mostly experience physical or mental PEM. This is from Lenny Jason's group in Chicago.

1) 🇩🇪 This study looked at medical diagnoses in an insurance database that preceded an ME/CFS diagnosis in children and young adults. For example: bronchitis and sinusitis were positively associated with ME/CFS rates while vaccination or ADHD has a negative association.

1) 🇩🇪 The steering committee for the National Decade against Post-Infectious Diseases agreed on three measures to be implemented at the start of the decade, includes a genome sequencing project. (An automatic translation of the German statement is pasted in the image below)

The authors have now decided to withdraw the publication: vu.nl/nl/nieuws/20...

1) Prof Jeroen Den Dunnen won a prestigious Vici grant (€ 1.5M) for his research on antibodies in post-acute infection syndromes such as ME/CFS. Vici is one of the largest personal scientific grants in the Netherlands. It's the first time it has been awarded to PAIS research.

1) This study scanned existing ME/CFS datasets on gene expression and proteomics to look for common genes or patterns. The mitochondrial genes MT-RNR1 and MT-RNR2 had lower expression in ME/CFS cases in two studies. Unfortunately, the results don't look very robust...

Does anyone (maybe @longcovidadvoc.com @longcovidsupport.bsky.social @longhaulerspodcast.bsky.social @mecfsskeptic.bsky.social) know if genomic data is being generated for the #LongCOVID #Recover study? I thought it was, but have been told a few times that it is not currently being generated. Ta!

Remember this Dutch study on Lidocaine injections for Long Covid? A newsarticle now reports that the research was conducted without ethical approval. ftm.nl/artikelen/po...

1) This new paper in the Lancet suggests that the risk of Long Covid has substantially decreased compared to the pandemic period. The excess prevalence of severe symptoms self-attributed to SARS-CoV-2 was only 0.3% after 180 days. A brief breakdown...

1) In his interview with David Tuller, Prof Jonathan Edwards gives some background on his open letter that criticises the British Association of Clinicians in ME/CFS (BACME). The discussion is about a change from rehabilitation to long-term care by physicians.

glad to see this thread. imo “unacceptable overreach, amounting to deception” describes a lot of communications in #LongCovid and #mecfs research and isn’t at all limited to explicit biopsychosocial model proponents. unfortunately.