New Study on ME/CFS & Long Covid Findings and Suggested Treatment

[KatB]

I'm relatively new to the forum and have spent a lot of time reading posts on ME/CFS since I've been ill with it for more than 40 years. Today I received a notice from the Open Medicine Foundation about a recent report from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory that contains some interesting information on two particular amino acids that they think may be helpful for patients. I'd appreciate thoughts on this. I take some of the amino acids that I've found recommended on the forum but they do not include the l-ornithine and l-aspartate that are being mentioned in this report. I do know that the Open Medicine Foundation believes that patients burn amino acids instead of glucose or for that matter anything else so am wondering if indeed taking these might be helpful?

Thank you in advance for any thoughts on this.

Abstract​

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and Long COVID are complex, multisystemic conditions that pose ongoing challenges to healthcare professionals. Emerging research suggests that ME/CFS and Long COVID exhibit overlapping metabolic symptoms, indicating possible shared metabolic dysfunctions. This study aims to systematically explore these shared metabolic disturbances and their potential treatments. Utilizing our novel metabolic modeling method, GPMM, we identified the key metabolic irregularities in patients with ME/CFS and Long COVID, notably the downregulation of the alanine and aspartate metabolism pathway, and the arginine and proline metabolism pathway. Genome-wide knockout analyses indicated that supplementation with aspartate (ASP) or asparagine (ASN) could potentially ameliorate these metabolic deficiencies. Further metabolic assessments in Long COVID patients highlighted the significant downregulation of ASP in both blood and muscle, supporting our predictions. Consequently, we propose that the combination of l-ornithine and l-aspartate (LOLA) offers a promising approach to alleviate metabolic symptoms in both ME/CFS and Long COVID patients. This study not only elucidates the shared metabolic pathways in ME/CFS and Long COVID but also positions LOLA as a viable candidate for future clinical trials.