<story><title>Scientists Edge Closer To Lab Test For Chronic Fatigue Syndrome</title><url>http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/07/31/540565526/scientists-edge-closer-to-elusive-lab-test-for-chronic-fatigue-syndrome</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>kens</author><text>I looked at the paper and the data is kind of strange. Looking at figure 2, there are a bunch of cytokines that have a nice linear progression with increasing levels corresponding to increasing severity of disease. This seems like solid evidence that more cytokine = bad.&lt;p&gt;But if you compare with the controls, mild cases of ME&amp;#x2F;CFS have &lt;i&gt;less&lt;/i&gt; than the control, moderate cases have the same as controls, and severe cases have more. This kind of torpedoes any simple explanation of what&amp;#x27;s going on. The authors discuss this in a kind of hand-wavy way that maybe ME&amp;#x2F;CFS causes some down-regulation to start with and then the increasing trend is on top of that.&lt;p&gt;So, I&amp;#x27;m not sure what to make of this. It seems useless as a test at this point: &amp;quot;You have totally normal cytokine levels, indicating that you&amp;#x27;re either healthy or have moderate ME&amp;#x2F;CFS.&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>Scientists Edge Closer To Lab Test For Chronic Fatigue Syndrome</title><url>http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/07/31/540565526/scientists-edge-closer-to-elusive-lab-test-for-chronic-fatigue-syndrome</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>propman</author><text>If someone comes to you with a whole lot of pain and loss of function, ignoring it and thinking it&amp;#x27;s just in their head&amp;#x2F;they just need to toughen up and get over it because nothing showed up in thier blood reports is something that is almost ubiquitous in the medical field today. I have a connective tissue disorder that was ignored for years because nothing showed up in my blood report and I looked healthy. There is a reason why people are dysfunctional and in pain and once I got a diagnosis from a very highly respected geneticist, every doctor believes you and then they start helping. Otherwise, many just brush you off or worse, perform a surgery and when you keep coming back due to little change in symptoms you get brushed off so you find another doctor, in their minds they successfully treated you and the same cycle continues until you find a doctor who listens and then the treatment essentially starts.&lt;p&gt;Glad to see CFS sufferers get some validation as they are ignored plenty of times, especially women sufferers.&lt;p&gt;Note: I would say 40% of my doctors (I&amp;#x27;ve seen over 50) were not like this and about 20% were over the top amazing. Acccesible through phone or email anytime, personally call you after appointments and intermittently to check up, personally call other doctors to explain issues and follow up treatments, extra long appointments.&lt;p&gt;Basic message: if someone is in pain&amp;#x2F;unhealthy there is a reason. Rarely it is psychological but that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean they should not receive adequate treatment and that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean you place them in that category unless you rule out plenty of other possibilities</text></comment>