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Metabolomics and Genetics Study

In May 2016, Open Medicine Foundation launched an Expanded ME / CFS Metabolomics and Genetics Study led by Dr. Robert Naviaux (a member of our Scientific Advisory Board at UC San Diego), and Dr. Ron Davis (director of OMF’s Scientific Advisory Board), in collaboration with Dr. Eric Gordon, Dr. Paul Cheney, and the Stanford Genome Technology Center. The purpose of this study is to validate earlier findings of a possible diagnostic signature for ME / CFS by measuring metabolites and to evaluate the contribution of genetics to the variation in observed metabolic signatures in this disease.

Dr. Naviaux completed an initial study of 90 participants (both healthy controls and patients) that showed abnormal metabolites in patients. The abnormalities suggest the mitochondria is in  hypometabolism due to a chronic cell danger response state in ME / CFS patients.

Read the following for more details about metabolomics from Robert K. Naviaux, MD, PhD.

Metabolomics and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome—Testing an Exciting New Technology for Diagnosis and Management for ME / CFS and other illnesses

The OMF and the North American ME / CFS Metabolomics Study

RobertKNaviauxMitochondria – “Mitochondria” is not quite a household word, but when it comes to understanding complex chronic disease, it should be. Mitochondria are the hub of the wheel of metabolism.

More than 90% of the pathways that break down food into building blocks and 70% of the pathways that make new building blocks have at least one reaction that passes through mitochondria. These little bioreactors use the oxygen we breathe to turn food and drink into energy and to perform over 500 other important chemical reactions in the cell.

Mitochondria also have another key function: They stand guard over the cell, ready to defend it when things go wrong. When a virus attacks, or a toxin is detected, mitochondria stop what they were doing, change their shape and cellular locations, and take up arms to help defend the cell. Mitochondria then send messages in the form of metabolites to the nucleus of the cell and to neighboring cells to signal the danger so gene expression can be changed and neighboring cells can prepare for battle. Different signals are sent when the danger has passed to alert the cell that healing can proceed.

“Metabolomics is a new lens that allows us to ‘see’ this inner world of the cell in a new way that lends itself to scientific discovery. This new vision is leading to breakthroughs in our understanding of why patients with ME / CFS get stuck in a cycle of pain and suffering and disability.” – Dr. Robert Naviaux

Recent scientific discoveries in our lab have shown that several different chronic complex diseases can result when this “cell danger response” (CDR) gets stuck in the “on” position for too long. When the CDR gets stuck, normal healing can’t proceed.  If this happens, it could theoretically lead to Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS).

Metabolomics – Metabolomics is one of the hottest rising stars in the high tech race to gain a molecular understanding of health and disease. Metabolomics uses a machine called a “mass spectrometer” to measure hundreds of chemicals in our blood.

In our lab, at the University of California San Diego, with a single blood specimen, we can measure over 500 of these chemicals from over 60 different biochemical pathways.

These chemicals are the building blocks that cells use to grow and function, to fight and to heal. Like a Hubble telescope for medicine, metabolomics is allowing us to see deeper and with greater clarity into the universe of the cell than has ever been possible before. In a drop of blood, we can “eavesdrop” on the collective conversations of all the cells in the body.

In ME / CFS, as in many complex chronic diseases, many genes interact with many environmental factors encountered at times of vulnerability. Complex diseases are not predestined by our genes alone. Complex diseases are ecogenetic—resulting from the interaction of genes inherited from our ancestors and environmental factors we encounter in a lifetime. Our metabolism is the real-time readout of the gene-environment interaction. Metabolomics is a new lens that allows us to “see” this inner world of the cell in a new way that lends itself to scientific discovery.

This new vision is leading to breakthroughs in our understanding of why patients with ME / CFS get stuck in a cycle of pain and suffering and disability. But more importantly, metabolomics is also shedding light on how rational therapies designed to trigger a return to health might be just around the corner.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS) Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), Fibromyalgia Leading Research. Delivering Hope.Open Medicine Foundation®

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