2015 NIH Grants for ME/CFS

Hi, it's me! Yes, I am still here - and still struggling with this major crash, six weeks now. I have finally gotten rid of the bronchitis but am left with a bad flare-up of my chronic yeast overgrowth, due to all the antibiotics I had to take. I can tell my symptoms now are due to yeast - severe flu-like aches, mild sore throat, always tired - just from past experience. I am doing all that I can to address it, using all the tools in my anti-yeast kit! Now, it's just a matter of time (I hope). I am making some progress and actually got out into the world (briefly) this week!

I am trying to get back into the routine of regular blogging, but all of my writing has suffered during this rough patch.

National Institutes of Medicine - photo from Health Rising

So, here's a very important post where someone else has done all the hard work for me. I turn once again to Cort Johnson, the dedicated and very talented investigator/writer behind Health Rising. Back in August (yes, I've been down that long!), Cort posted a comprehensive and very informative list of all of the 2015 research grants approved by the NIH (National Institutes of Health in the U.S.) for the study of ME/CFS. As he points out, there are a surprising number of them - just imagine what could be done with research funding to equal other serious diseases!

The grants in this list are not the old "Is CFS depression?" type of studies we saw in the past - these are solid, science-heavy studies on all aspects of our complicated illness - immune dysfunction, genetics, exercise intolerance, the role of infections, and more. And the studies cover women, men (finally!), and even pediatrics (double finally!).

Note that the first study listed on Cort's blog is being led by Ian Lipkin and Maddy Hornig who earlier this year released their data on a ground-breaking study of immune dysfunction in ME/CFS. Ian Lipkin is from outside of the ME/CFS world, known as a world-renowned virologist - definitely a good person to have on our side! But it's not all big names - there are plenty of new researchers in this list of grants, too. That's great news.

In fact, this is all great news! Very exciting to see so many complex studies with such depth to them and to consider the kinds of answers we could get in the coming years on biomarkers, possible causes, and effective treatments. The state of research into ME/CFS has never been better!