A $246,000 Grant to Increase Blood Volume in ME/CFS

We hypothesize that equal volumes of ORS is not inferior and may be superior to intravenous saline infusion in increasing intravascular and interstitial fluid volume and improving orthostatic tolerance. Medow et. al. Click to expand...

[fright][/fright]We just got some more confirmation of progress in ME/CFS at the NIH. Another grant for ME/CFS was just funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) - ME/CFS's champion at the NIH.Marvin Medow has been studying POTS and ME/CFS for years. In a dramatic finding Medow was able to completely reverse the effects of the tilt table on cerebral blood flows, cognition, and other measures in POTS patient's using phenylephrine . One of his recent grants (study not published yet) examined the effectiveness of saline in treating ME/CFS.This was the first time that saline has ever been assessed as a treatment for ME/CFS. While saline obviously isn't a cure it can help and a positive finding would surely lead doctors and researchers think differently about ME/CFS. It would hopefully lead to more doctors testing for low blood volume - see Daxor in the Resource section - and researchers attempting to understand why it's there.[fleft][/fleft]The problem with saline is that infusing it over and over can cause problems. Medow, therefore, is going assess the effectiveness of an oral rehydration solution (ORS) developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to rehydrate cholera patients. Cholera is a bacterium that can cause diarrhea so severe that death from dehydration can occur in hours.Medow states in the grant that WHO's oral rehydration salts rival the effectiveness of IV infusions in increasing blood volume. In fact, Medow's preliminary data examining blood flows to the brain, cardiac output and blood drainage into the legs suggests that the WHO's ORS may bethan saline infusions in people with ME/CFS.The study will examine 30 ME/CFS patients with either POTS or neurally mediated hypotension (NMH) plus healthy controls. It will measure blood volume and neurovascular coupling before and after ORS use. It begins now and is expected to end in January, 2018.ME/CFS needs many more grants like this, but it's good see this grant (and the big Nath study underway) as we await word from the Trans-NIH Working Group on how they plan to attack ME/CFS.