Yes, Sarah Myhill (an English doctor who specializes in chronic fatigue) has published a fabulous paper (really good actually, reads more like physics than the usual medical rubbish) attributing the whole thing to an inability of the mitochondria to recycle ATP. If your mitochondria were completely buggered, that would presumably cut your easily available energy by a factor of about 30, before you have to go into anaerobic respiration.
Imagine that! Climbing the stairs in your house might feel like walking up to the top of a tower block, and significant exercise would shatter you like a marathon does, and leave lots of lactic acid behind, which sounds a bit like the muscle pain in fibromyalgia.
So now we’ve got two competing explanations, which is the closest I’ve come to breaking my idea. But of course, the thyroid hormones have effects on the mitochondria! I think she thinks it’s mostly environmental, and of course it could well be, but that doesn’t mean the extra T3 might not alleviate the symptoms.
I wrote to Doctor Myhill asking her if they could be the same thing, but no reply. I don’t know if that means she’s thinking about it or whether she gets enough crank letters as it is.
I have an awful lot more to say about this, but the essay above is the bit that I’m fairly sure of. The rest is all wild speculation.
But I intend to write it all down, and if Less Wrong is interested then this is a good place to post it.
It occurred to me that we needed another Amanda Knox. This looks like one, if we can solve it. As well as the side effect of doing a terrific amount of good in the world.
Part of me thinks, hang on, all this is just bloody obvious and there are loads of alternative medicine people and doctors talking about it. And part of me thinks, if it’s so obvious, why has no-one bothered to refute it/been able to prove it?
I have a feeling that the answer is actually going to be very complicated, and involve a lot of bad science and human feelings getting in the way of inference. Which is the sort of thing we’re supposed to be good at, right?
...and there are mutations in mitochondrial DNA, which on one hand should have already been tested and rejected and don’t seem very likely, given inheritance patterns, and on the other are linked to some relevant illnesses (although not fibromyalgia itself, if I understand Wiki right).
Yes, Sarah Myhill (an English doctor who specializes in chronic fatigue) has published a fabulous paper (really good actually, reads more like physics than the usual medical rubbish) attributing the whole thing to an inability of the mitochondria to recycle ATP. If your mitochondria were completely buggered, that would presumably cut your easily available energy by a factor of about 30, before you have to go into anaerobic respiration.
Imagine that! Climbing the stairs in your house might feel like walking up to the top of a tower block, and significant exercise would shatter you like a marathon does, and leave lots of lactic acid behind, which sounds a bit like the muscle pain in fibromyalgia.
So now we’ve got two competing explanations, which is the closest I’ve come to breaking my idea. But of course, the thyroid hormones have effects on the mitochondria! I think she thinks it’s mostly environmental, and of course it could well be, but that doesn’t mean the extra T3 might not alleviate the symptoms.
I wrote to Doctor Myhill asking her if they could be the same thing, but no reply. I don’t know if that means she’s thinking about it or whether she gets enough crank letters as it is.
I have an awful lot more to say about this, but the essay above is the bit that I’m fairly sure of. The rest is all wild speculation.
But I intend to write it all down, and if Less Wrong is interested then this is a good place to post it.
It occurred to me that we needed another Amanda Knox. This looks like one, if we can solve it. As well as the side effect of doing a terrific amount of good in the world.
Part of me thinks, hang on, all this is just bloody obvious and there are loads of alternative medicine people and doctors talking about it. And part of me thinks, if it’s so obvious, why has no-one bothered to refute it/been able to prove it?
I have a feeling that the answer is actually going to be very complicated, and involve a lot of bad science and human feelings getting in the way of inference. Which is the sort of thing we’re supposed to be good at, right?
...and there are mutations in mitochondrial DNA, which on one hand should have already been tested and rejected and don’t seem very likely, given inheritance patterns, and on the other are linked to some relevant illnesses (although not fibromyalgia itself, if I understand Wiki right).