Abstract:
Background: Cochrane recently amended its exercise review for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) in response to an official complaint.
Objective: To determine if the amended review has addressed the concerns raised about the previous review and if exercise is an effective treatment that restores the ability to work in ME/CFS.
Method: The authors reviewed the amended Cochrane exercise review and the eight trials in it by paying particular interest to the objective outcomes. We also summarised the recently published review of work rehabilitation and medical retirement for ME/CFS.
Results: The Cochrane review concluded that graded exercise therapy (GET) improves fatigue at the end of treatment compared to no-treatment. However, the review did not consider the unreliability of subjective outcomes in non-blinded trials, the objective outcomes which showed that GET is not effective, or the serious flaws of the studies included in the review. These flaws included badly matched control groups, relying on an unreliable fatigue instrument as primary outcome, outcome switching, p-hacking, ignoring evidence of harms, etc. The review did also not take into account that GET does not restore the ability to work.
Conclusion: GET not only fails to objectively improve function significantly or to restore the ability to work, but it’s also detrimental to the health of≥50% of patients, according to a multitude of patient surveys. Consequently, it should not be recommended.
Source: Vink M, Vink-Niese F. Graded exercise therapy doesn’t restore the ability to work in ME/CFS. Rethinking of a Cochrane review [published online ahead of print, 2020 Jun 14]. Work. 2020;10.3233/WOR-203174. doi:10.3233/WOR-203174 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32568149/