MAGICAL MEDICINE: HOW TO MAKE AN ILLNESS ... - Invest in ME

1995
123
“The use of cardiopulmonary exercise testing is not only valid and reliable, but also serves as an objective indicator for
assessing disability. Maximal cardiopulmonary exercise testing provides two objective markers of functional capacity.
The first is maximal oxygen consumption. The most important determinant of functional capacity is not maximal
oxygen consumption, but anaerobic threshold. Typically ME/CFS patients achieve less than 80% of predicted
maximal oxygen consumption with an anaerobic threshold lower than 40% of predicted peak oxygen
consumption levels. In ME/CFS patients, we have not found re‐conditioning to be possible. In fact, attempts to re‐
condition patients consistently results in exacerbation of symptomatology. Cardiopulmonary exercise testing
can be used to provide ME/CFS patients with another objective marker that will aid them in obtaining disability
status” (SR Steven. JCFS 1995:1:3‐4:127‐129).
1996
At the State of Massachusetts educational workshop given by Professor Paul Cheney, evidence was
presented of the complexity of ME/CFS (referred to as “CFIDS”, or Chronic Fatigue and Immune
Dysfunction Syndrome). According to Cheney, 80% of ME/CFS patients display medication and
environmental sensitivities; there is evidence of lymphatic involvement, with the thoracic duct being tender,
and the swollen areas on the neck or upper chest being a back‐up of lymphatic fluid.
Cheney biopsied 16 digits of people with ME/CFS and found a vasculitis not uncommon in immune
activation and similar to that which is found in SLE / systemic lupus erythematosus (The Massachusetts
CFIDS Update).
1997
“Myocarditis was a common symptom in an analysis of 1,000 patients of ME/CFS who were seen in
Glasgow over the past 20 years. We were struck by the often‐occurring association of patients who develop ME/CFS
with acute chest pain resembling a coronary thrombosis. On subsequent clinical follow‐up, all these patients had a
clinical course that was indistinguishable from patients who presented with Syndrome X. Nuclear magnetic resonance
spectroscopy studies of skeletal muscle in patients with Syndrome X show abnormalities that are identical to those
found in patients with ME/CFS. We, in examining muscle biopsies of patients with ME/CFS, showed an increase in
calcium ATPase activity in skeletal muscles. These data strengthen the relationship between ME/CFS and Syndrome X
and suggest that an increased energy expenditure, with a consequent reduction of intra‐cellular ATP (adenosine
triphosphate) and an increase in ATPase activity could account for the abnormalities in these two conditions.
Thallium cardiac scans (thallium‐210 SPECT scans) in patients with ME/CFS revealed moderate defects in
the left ventricle” (Arguments for a role of abnormal ionophore function in CFS. A Chaudhuri et al. In:
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Ed: Yehuda and Mostofsky; Plenum Press, New York, 1997).
1997
“We report the prevalence of abnormal oscillating T waves at Holter monitoring in a consecutive case series of
ME/CFS patients from an infectious diseases centre. Every ME/CFS patient, but only 22.4% of the non‐ME/CFS
patients, showed abnormal oscillating T wave flattenings or inversions at Holter monitoring. Abnormal
cardiac wall motion at rest and stress, dilatation of the left ventricle, and segmental wall abnormalities
were present. Left ventricular ejection fractions, at rest and with exercise, as low as 30% were seen in
ME/CFS patients. The abnormal (results) which we confirm here appear to be an essential element to the pathologic
physiology of the cardiomyopathy of ME/CFS” (Cardiac Involvement in Patients with CFS as Documented with
Holter and Biopsy Data in Michigan, 1991‐1993. AM Lerner et al. Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice
1997:6:327‐333).
This research was summarised by Dr PD Corning, having been reviewed and approved by Dr Lerner: