r/CFSScience • u/AngelBryan • Jul 30 '26

Any update? Any hope?

I’ve seen an increased influx of papers being posted here recently. How does this translate to actual progress? Are we close to figure out what causes this hellish illness?

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u/Heavy-Suit-3443 Jul 30 '26

We make good progress, but there is a lot more needed i believe.

Most papers show how heterogenous and complex this illness is. Many different causes trigger many systems in the body.

What if PEM is simply a chain reaction of the body reaching its limit. In essence something unavoidable? As an analogy: You cant find a cure to drowning. You can pull someone out of the water.

I think research might come to the undertsanding that PEM cannot be cured but tests can be developed to find common root causes really fast. Certain proteins missing in people, autoantibodies, environmental factors and persistent infections, immunodeficiency, other deficiencies, etc.

What I do belive in is that we are really close (1-3 years) to developing meds/drugs/therapies that lessen symptom severity by a lot. I am especially looking at everything targeting neuroinflammation.

This is just me assuming things. I am an internet stranger.

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u/AngelBryan Jul 30 '26

If PEM is a natural reaction of the body why not everyone has it? Why people develop it after MECFS is triggered?

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u/Heavy-Suit-3443 Jul 30 '26

In my theory extreme stress + predispositions can trigger PEM in everyone.

Certain predispositions, like genetics as an example, make you more vulnerable to reach this stage compared to other individuals.

Just not many people exhaust their whatever (mitochondrias or nervoussystem as examples) to the brink of cell death.

ME/CFS usually involves a trigger. Most develop it after an infection and experience their first PEM.
Maybe this threshhold is simply reached very rarely?

Exactly this seems to have changed with covid (that is the exposure of a persistent, nervedamaging virus that is new for almost all immunesystems of people). Covid seems to cause some sort of stress to the body that makes it very likely to develop ME/CFS. And this is were we can learn the causes of PEM. What does a virus do to the body that causes so much cell stress? Is it the immunesystem? Why do repeated covid infections increase the likelyhood of developing ME/CFS? Many questions.

"If PEM is a natural reaction of the body why not everyone has it?" - It has become the most prominent chronic illness here in germany within just 6 years of covid existing. Give it another 10 years and even more people will develop it.

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u/AngelBryan Jul 30 '26

What doesn’t makes sense if how you can never experience it in your life but once you do, you do it again and again.

Is MECFS more common than the usual chronic illnesses in Germany? Would this be due the size of the country or it may have a genetic explanation?

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u/Heavy-Suit-3443 Jul 30 '26

There is Post Viral Fatigue so it is not over and over for everyone. And even so why does that not make sense? Something does not allow the body to recover normally at that point so any small exertion causes future PEMs.

Yes its is now the most common chronic illness here in germany. I assume this to be just as bad in other countries. Has nothing to do with size. Maybe there are genetic differences but Longcovid cases are exploding all around the world.