Irish Medical Times | Opinion | Belfast-born doctor pushes ME research

Irish Medical Times | Opinion | Belfast-born doctor pushes ME research: "Belfast-born doctor pushes ME researchBelfast-born doctor pushes ME research"

Contains: Belfast-born Dr Derek Enlander has been chosen as the Irish
representative on a new European Think Tank for ME ... The 10-member group
wants to initiate an effective research effort to find the secret behind the
somewhat mysterious disease. “The doctor is [often] skeptical and believes
the patient must be imagining that they are sick. The idea that they can’t
work is because they are lazy or they are neurotic ...

“But this is not a psychiatric disease. This is a physical disease,” he stressed. “It has been
shown that there is a dysfunction of the immune system, and it is this
dysfunction that people are now actually focusing on for treatment.”

... Dr Enlander is highly critical of psychiatrists who believe graded exercise
therapy and cognitive therapy can be effective treatment. “We have found
that graded exercise therapy can actually be detrimental to the patient’s
progress ... most patients have had positive exposure to one of a number of
viruses, such as Human Herpes virus 6 ...

His clinic in Manhattan has devised a protocol based on what is called the ‘Methylation Cycle’ ...latest work involves a diagnostic test using hydrogen sulphide. “Hydrogen
sulphide is not the specific test for this disease, but it is an indicator
of an abnormality.” ... “Scientists have already uncovered a lot about ME,
but this information does not reach professional health care personnel, and
the disease is still not taken seriously,” he commented. “It is about time
this changed.”