Day 3 (29 July 2022) of the IACFS/ME Annual Conference provided a continuous stream of fascinating and illuminating talks and presentations. The final two days of the conference had a particular focus on the immunology and management of Long-Covid with relevance to ME/CFS.
Dr. Daiki Takewaki at the National Institute of Science Japan talked about clearly identifiable gut dysbiosis (imbalance of gut microbiota involving the loss of beneficial microbial input or signal and an expansion of pathogenic microbes – pathobionts) that correlate with symptoms and immune markers in ME/CFS patients. A number of speakers provided patient case work from clinical practice, including Melissa Siller and Susan Levine MD, Lucina Bateman MD talked on follow-up of identical twins and the risk of family members also developing ME/CFS, and Leigh Jerome PhD on the care and management of Long-Covid patients.
One of the stand-out talks was given by Akiko Iwasaki PhD, a Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale Medical School. Dr. Iwasaki provided an especially insightful talk on the biochemical signatures of Long-Covid syndrome. Dr. Iwasaki stated that it was fairly easy to differentiate Long-Covid sufferers simply by examining their symptom profiles on simple symptom surveys, and that Long-Covid was a female dominant illness, just like ME/CFS; symptoms were largely the same as in ME/CFS, with some exceptions, such as breathlessness being more prevalent in Long-Covid but post-exertional malaise (PEM), brain-fog, sleep disturbances, and fatigue all being dominant features of Long-Covid.