A simple blood test could offer first reliable diagnosis for ME
A simple blood test could provide the first reliable diagnosis for myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and end the lengthy process of trying to identify the debilitating condition, scientists have found.
It's thought more than 400,000 people in the UK suffer with the condition, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).
Pain, brain fog and extreme low energy that does not improve with sleep are just some of the symptoms of ME. There is no cure and the cause is unknown.
Currently the only way to diagnose it is by ruling out other illnesses – a long process that can mean patients wait years for a diagnosis.
However, researchers at the University of Edinburgh believe they have made a breakthrough.
The study published in the Journal EMBO Molecular Medicine used data from the UK Biobank – a large-scale resource based on the health data and biological samples of 500,000 UK participants.
Researchers compared blood samples from 1,455 ME patients with more than 131,000 healthy people. They identified differences in cell counts and molecules that differed in concentrations between the two.
The differences in samples for the ME patients were related to chronic inflammation, insulin resistance and liver dysfunction.
These findings were compared and replicated in data from a group of American patients and healthy controls.
Researchers found 116 'biomarkers' for ME in the blood of men and women with the condition. This is a key finding because the condition affects men and women differently.
Professor Chris Ponting, of the university's Institute of Genetics and Cancer, said: 'For so long people with ME/CFS have been told it's all in their head. It's not. We see [it] in their blood.
'Evidence of a large number of replicated and diverse blood biomarkers that differentiate between ME/CFS cases and controls should dispel any lingering perception it is caused by deconditioning and exercise intolerance.'
These biomarkers did not change when the participants were any more active – consistent with the view graded exercise therapy, which aims to gradually increase activity levels, is unlikely to be helpful.
In fact, the largest differences were seen in people who reported post-exertional malaise. This is when the symptoms of the condition become worse even after minor physical effort.
Dr Sjoerd Beentjes, of the university's School of Mathematics, said: 'Blood differences are sometimes attributed to reduced activity levels rather than ME/CFS directly. Our study provides strong evidence ME/CFS affects blood traits through paths other than activity.'
However, this research is still at an early stage and there is no guarantee a test will be possible, study authors stressed.
Professor Kevin McConway, Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, Open University, who was not part of the study, said: 'There is a lot more to do.'
'These findings could help in finding a set of blood biomarkers that can reasonably reliably distinguish people with ME/CFS from those who do not have that condition, but that, without a lot of further work, the findings do not in themselves provide such a set of biomarkers,' he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
UNAIDS Executive Director: ‘The HIV Response Is in Crisis'
Winnie Byanyima says her organization has lost almost 50% of its funding, a gap that is undermining global efforts to combat HIV/AIDS. By Are we unraveling years of progress on fighting HIV/AIDS? For the past two decades, the US has led the global response to a virus and disease that have together claimed more than 40 million lives. But there are still more than a million new infections every year; with no vaccine or cure, preventing further spread is critical. This is why there was so much alarm from campaigners and experts when the US Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, started slashing foreign aid. In an interview last month, Musk himself told me that HIV-prevention programs were ongoing. But Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS, tells a different story. Her organization is one of the key bodies fighting the virus globally — UNAIDS operates in nearly 100 countries — and Byanyima says the disruption she's seeing is both real and deadly. We spoke while Byanyima was on a visit to South Africa, where the rollout of one of the most promising HIV-prevention tools in a generation is now in doubt. 'Even if I get the next batch of medicines,' one aid worker in Soweto told her, 'they may expire because the two people I had who go out and reach people in their communities [are no longer there].' This interview has been edited for length and clarity. First of all, are you able to set the record straight? To what extent has your work at UNAIDS been affected by the DOGE-led cuts to USAID? First, globally, the HIV response is in crisis. Clinics have closed. Prevention services have halted. People are losing access to lifesaving medicines. People are scared. Our work as the UN leader of the global HIV response is also affected severely. We've lost close to 50% of our funding. It came from two pockets of the United States government. So we are also struggling to stay alive. But there is a crisis and a huge disruption, the biggest since the global response was created about 25 years ago. I know that Elon Musk has doubted that these disruptions are there,[and] has even said that if they are there, he would fix them. 1 I know he has left government, but I'll be happy to go with him anywhere in Africa or Asia to show him, or take any other American official to see what the real impacts are for people living with HIV and for people at risk of HIV, like gay men [or] women and girls in Africa. In our May conversation, Musk said he did not believe many HIV-prevention programs had stalled: 'If in fact this is true, which I doubt it is, then we'll fix it.' But he also questioned the assertion that cutting USAID would result in any fatalities, saying that recipient organizations 'don't even try to come up with a show orphan' to back up their claims of saving lives. When you say the HIV response globally is in crisis, how much of that is to do with US funding cuts? How great is America 's responsibility for that situation? Huge. The United States government and US taxpayers were contributing a lion's share of the support to developing countries to fight this disease, up to 73%. You might say, why the United States? Well, it's the wealthiest country in the world, and these are the poorest countries in the world. By pulling its funding away very quickly, the US didn't [give] these highly indebted countries — that are heavily impacted by [the] climate crisis, that have huge burdens of disease beyond HIV — enough time to be able to fill the gap. 2 UNAIDS created a portal to track the real-time effects of US funding cuts in the developing countries in which it operates, including observations from officials in the field. 'My greatest fear is that we will return to the dark days of the epidemic,' says the director of UNAIDS in Zambia. But what about other donors? What about rich countries in the Middle East or other G-7 countries or philanthropists with deep pockets? There have been two main sources of funding to support developing countries [on HIV/AIDS]. One is the American program, PEPFAR, the presidential initiative, and the other is called the Global Fund, where other donors — the Europeans, the Japanese, the Chinese — all put money together and help the developing countries. When the major contributor pulls out with little notice, things collapse. That is what has happened. In South Africa, which funds 80% of its own response and has been getting US support for only 17%, I visited a clinic in Soweto and saw the impact. A man who works [there] told me, 'Even if I get the next batch of medicines, they may expire because the two people I had who go out and reach people in their communities and bring them for service [are no longer there].' He's seeing a drop in the numbers of people coming forward to get what they need to prevent or to be treated. 3 This is backed up by recent Bloomberg reporting from South Africa, which has the world's largest HIV-treatment program with 80% of 7.8 million infected people on medication. So we are seeing that even in a country that's not so dependent, there are disruptions. Even in a country where the will is so strong, like South Africa, you're still seeing a gap that is definitely going to result in more new infections and more deaths. We know from our modeling that if the gap is not filled by other funding, in the next four years we are going to see up to 6.6 million additional new infections and additional deaths of 4.2 million. And that's in addition to what we were already estimating. PEPFAR, the program that you are referring to, 4 is the responsibility of the State Department. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, says 85% of PEPFAR is functional. PEPFAR stands for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It was a US policy choice that began during the George W. Bush administration in 2003, and has since then provided cumulative funding of $120 billion for HIV/AIDS treatment. That's roughly as much as the US government spends on its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) in a single year. It isn't exactly that because the PEPFAR program on the ground is implemented by two parts of the American government, the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] in Atlanta and USAID. Now USAID has been shut. So there's no work that was done by USAID that's going on right now, though some work by the CDC is still going on. 'I say to President Trump: You are a man who likes to do a deal. Here's a deal.' But over and above that, there has been confusion. First, the cut was a stop-work order for everything. Then, within a week — and we thank the American administration for realizing that this was going to cost lives — they said it can come back, but only some of it. We see testing and treatment coming back by the CDC. We don't see much progress on prevention. So in many places, prevention clinics where people get their condoms, their PrEP, vaginal ring, whatever — these are not open. So we do see many gaps, particularly for women and girls in Africa, gay men, sex workers and people who inject drugs. They have their special clinics; those too have closed. It seems then that you think the statement '85% of PEPFAR is functional' is inaccurate, or misleading. It is inaccurate to the extent that the impact for the very low-income countries is huge. Our own data shows us that the impact is much bigger than that. 5 We asked the State Department to respond to UNAIDS' assertion that many HIV-prevention programs supported by the US have stalled. They told us they continue to support testing, care, treatment and prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and that an estimated 85% of beneficiaries could be receiving lifesaving treatment and prevention of mother-to-child transmission. All other PEPFAR-funded services are under review. Did you have any contact with Elon Musk's team at DOGE? We appealed to him publicly. I am very loud on social media and said I'm happy to meet him and take him to see. Anyway, he's left government. We are addressing ourselves now to the American government to say, 'You started something strong.' A Republican government, President Bush, came out at a time of the worst pandemic of the century and [began] a program to save lives. Right now, there are tools that could end this pandemic, and I say to President Trump: You are a man who likes to do a deal. Here's a deal. There is an American innovation called lenacapavir that's 100% effective to stop infections. An American innovation that creates American jobs that could be rolled out and we could cut down new infections almost to zero. Why not do this? That would be another Republican president bringing a revolution on prevention. This could be a win-win. Get the Bloomberg Weekend newsletter. Big ideas and open questions in the fascinating places where finance, life and culture meet. Sign Up By continuing, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. It is a US pharmaceutical company, Gilead, that's behind lenacapavir, which has been through lots of trials. But there would still be an issue, wouldn't there? It is likely to be extremely expensive. Wouldn't access to the drug possibly be like antiretrovirals in their early years, when they were out of the reach of the world's poorest people? You are right. We are hearing rumors in the media of $25,000 per person per year, and [if] it comes out at that price, then it will not bring new infections down to zero. 6 When they first came out, antiretrovirals used to treat HIV infections could cost more than $10,000 a year, but they eventually became widely available thanks to the work of aid organizations. Now lencapavir promises to provide six-month protection from infection, eliminating the need to take daily pills. On June 18, Gilead said that lenacapavir, marketed as Yeztugo, has a list price of $28,218 per year. It sounds as if this has been an extraordinary rollercoaster. You had immense hope that 2025 could be a breakthrough year, and instead you spent the first half of it almost battling for the organization's survival? That's true. I'm letting people go. People who have, over 20 years, built the experience to support this response. It's sad and it's unnecessary considering the billions that are being spent on building up new weapons systems and fighting wars. My core budget was not even $150 million [a year], but now it's been slashed by almost half. It's a sad moment, but we won't give up. I'm inspired by the governments and the people in countries [that] aren't giving up. They are stretching themselves, volunteering, doing things differently. We've got to keep people alive. So we are pushing on. We will continue fighting. I read that you are having to fight on another front at this moment, a personal front. You grew up in Uganda, you served your country as a political leader before you moved into international work, 7 and your husband is a longtime opposition leader in Uganda. Is it the case that he remains imprisoned, as we speak, on very serious charges? Byanyima has had quite a career. She was a flight engineer for Uganda Airlines, a combatant (alongside her husband) in the National Resistance Army and Uganda's ambassador to France from 1989 until 1994. She helped draft Uganda's 1995 constitution, and served two consecutive terms as a member of parliament before serving in leadership roles at the African Union and Oxfam International. She became executive director of UNAIDS in August 2019. That is true, Mishal. My country has struggled through crises since independence. We thought we had turned the corner through a revolution that brought back democracy, but we've seen reversals in the last 10 to 15 years. My husband has been an opposition leader for the last 25 years. But for most of those, he's been in and out of jail — always criminalized, but always being exonerated by the courts. Last November he was abducted from neighboring Kenya and taken across the border. It's now six months he's been in jail. He hasn't been tried. For a long time he was not even charged, he was just illegally being held. He's not the only political prisoner, but we have the international human rights organizations supporting his cause, supporting that he should be released on bail, so that he can fight whatever charge they may have against him. 8 In February, Byanyima's husband Kizza Besigye was charged with treason over an alleged plot to overthrow Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Besigye has unsuccessfully tried to unseat Museveni — who has been in power since 1986 — in four elections. How is he and are you able to be in contact with him? We are in contact with him and able to visit him. But he's not in a good condition. He's in a tiny cell where you can hardly even sit by his bedside, there's not enough room. So yes, I am angry at how he's being treated. I'm angry at the illegality that the president has shown. The Supreme Court decided that as a civilian, he should not be tried by the military. [President Yoweri Museveni] reversed it by bringing a law before Parliament to allow civilians to be tried by the military. 'No one anywhere — in any country in the world, rich or poor — should take freedom for granted, should assume that because they're enjoying human rights, because there's rule of law at a certain point in time, that it'll always be there.' Didn't he used to be a friend of yours, President Museveni? He is a family friend. I first met him when I was little. He was always in and out of the family home. He was a friend of my parents. This is just about politics and power. President Museveni has never quite accepted the idea of being a democratically elected leader who respects an opposition and competes with them fairly. I wonder what this leads you to conclude about the nature of power and authority. Your generation knows what dictatorship was like when you were growing up, the time of Idi Amin. You ended up having to leave Uganda, you came back, and you were part of building institutional governance. What are the lessons of how to build a nation to ensure structures that safeguard people's rights? You raise a very important point. No one anywhere — in any country in the world, rich or poor — should take freedom for granted, should assume that because they're enjoying human rights, because there's rule of law at a certain point in time, that it'll always be there. You can have reversals. Sudden reversals or slow reversals, but reversals do happen. You must always be working as a citizen, doing your duty to protect your constitution, to defend the rule of law, to defend the human rights of others, not just for yourself. May I close, Winnie, by asking you what gives you strength? To be battling on these two fronts — one professional, one personal — at the same time, it would take a lot out of anyone. It is tough, but the truth is that I have lived a life of struggle. I don't say my life was always rough. I've had, and I still have, very many happy moments. But at every point I have had to be a part of struggles, to make lives better — for myself and for others. What's happening to me on the personal front, what's happening on the professional side, I see them all as a struggle for justice. Justice for my husband, justice for people living with HIV, justice for those who are denied their rights because of their sexual orientation, because of who they are. So I live day by day and think everybody has their load to carry. And that's mine. Mishal Husain is Editor at Large for Bloomberg Weekend. More On Bloomberg
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Britain's lawmakers vote to legalize assisted dying, a landmark move after a fraught national debate
Lawmakers in Britain have narrowly approved a bill to legalize assisted dying for terminally ill people, capping a fraught debate in Parliament and across the country that cut across political, religious and legal divides. MPs passed the bill by 314 votes to 291, in their final say on the question. The bill – which has split lawmakers and sparked impassioned conversations with their constituents the breadth of Britain – will now move to the House of Lords for its final rounds of scrutiny. Friday's vote puts Britain firmly on track to join a small club of nations that have legalized the process, and one of the largest by population to allow it. It allows people with a terminal condition and less than six months to live to take a substance to end their lives, as long as they are capable of making the decision themselves. Two doctors and a panel would need to sign off on the choice. Canada, New Zealand, Spain and most of Australia allow assisted dying in some form, as do several US states, including Oregon, Washington and California. Friday's vote in Parliament coincided with a charged public debate about whether the state should be dictating the choices available to Britons in the final moments of their lives. Proponents included Esther Rantzen, a BBC TV presenter with advanced lung cancer, who argued that the choice would save millions from unnecessary suffering. 'If we don't vote to change the law today, what does that mean?,' asked Kim Leadbeater, the MP who introduced the bill last year. 'It means we will have many more years of heartbreaking stories from terminally ill people and their families, of pain and trauma, suicide attempts, PTSD, lonely trips to (clinics in) Switzerland, police investigations.' The option, she said, is 'not a choice between living and dying: it is a choice for terminally ill people about how they die.' But opponents have criticized the bill on religious and ethical grounds, and raised issues with a legislative process they accuse of being opaque. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown argued that fixing Britain's strained end-of-live care system should be prioritized, writing in a rare intervention in The Guardian that the bill 'would privilege the legal right to assisted dying without guaranteeing anything approaching an equivalent right to high-quality palliative care for those close to death.' Seriously ill people 'need the health and social care system fixing first,' Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft said in Parliament Friday. 'They want us as parliamentarians to assist them to live, not to die.' Friday's debate was concluded with a free vote, meaning that MPs were allowed to decide for or against the bill according to their conscience, and free from any party-line whipping. The proposed bill is broadly in line with the Oregon model, and does not go as far as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada, which allow assisted death in cases of suffering, not just for terminally ill people. It differs from euthanasia, the process in which another person deliberately ends someone's life to relieve suffering. It is currently a crime to help somebody die in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Performing euthanasia on a person, meanwhile, is considered murder or manslaughter.
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Assisted Dying Moves Closer to Becoming Law in England and Wales After Key Vote
British lawmakers on Friday approved plans to introduce assisted dying for terminally ill patients in England and Wales, advancing what would be one of the biggest social changes seen in Britain in decades. After a debate that was at times emotive and fraught but remained respectful in tone, legislators supported the proposal by a vote of 314 to 291. The vote on Friday was the second time lawmakers have approved the idea of assisted dying, after an initial vote in November of last year that was followed by months of scrutiny and debate in parliamentary committees. The issue has provoked deep division in and beyond the British Parliament. The bill now goes to the unelected second chamber of the Parliament, the House of Lords. While the Lords can amend legislation, the fact that the bill has the support of elected lawmakers means that it is very likely to become law. That would mean Britain would join a number of jurisdictions where assisted dying is permitted, including a small number of European countries, Canada and New Zealand, as well as 10 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
