“This new research into the cause of Long Covid provides further evidence of a significant defect in the way in which energy is created in response to exercise in battery-like structures in the muscle called mitochondria.
There is also a very sensible warning, based on these findings, in the Guardian article against the use of exercise programmes to treat Long Covid. But it was disappointing to see that the Guardian did not appear to be aware that the same sort of muscle problem is a well-recognised feature of ME/CFS.
We already know from the muscle research that I was involved with in Oxford back in the early 1980s, which was published in The Lancet, that there is a defect in mitochondrial function in ME/CFS. Since then there have been several other research studies confirming the presence of mitochondrial dysfunction in ME/CFS and the MEA has funded research into muscle in both Oxford (Dr Karl Morten’s group) and Newcastle (Professor Julia Newton’s group)”
Dr Charles Shepherd,
Trustee and Hon. Medical Adviser. The ME Association.
“This research is summarised and referenced in the Research chapter of the MEA Clinical and Research Guide (the ‘Purple Book’).”