• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Some help/advice with Kreb cycle

gregh286

Senior Member
Messages
976
Location
Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
hi guys,
I am new here, so forgive me if I post in wrong place.
I got my Kreb cycle back from Lab, just wondering if any of the veterans here could offer me assistance to interpret the results, and/or offer a guidance.
to an untrained eye, all my cellular energy metabolism+cycles are right on the low end of the scale.
41 Y/o Male, Length of CFS approx 1 year. General symptoms, heavy fatigue that cycles in and out, mildly sore elbow joints, brain fog not an issue. Legs very heavy and wooden, close to no tolerance to exercise. Like most, it drives me mad.
Current supplement, D-Ribose, Multi-V, CQ10, L-Carnitine.
Thanks for any help, it is hugely appreciated.

Regards
greg.
 

Attachments

  • kreb1.jpg
    kreb1.jpg
    87.8 KB · Views: 30
  • kreb2.jpg
    kreb2.jpg
    180.2 KB · Views: 30

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
A big welcome to the forum, Greg.
These tests are very interesting for me. I live in the UK, and so I've never seen anything like this before. (We get offered a thyroid function test if we're lucky.)
The mitochondria results look interesting, but I'm unable to interpret them, so I'll leave that to others.

Just in case anyone is struggling with the images, the large size files (with readable text) of your images, can be found here:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?attachments/kreb1-jpg.8014/
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?attachments/kreb2-jpg.8015/
 

Tammy

Senior Member
Messages
2,181
Location
New Mexico
Greg...................I had this same test many years ago.....and when they sent the lab kit to my Doctor it included a manual which I ended up with. This manual was fantastic as it gave so much information on how to interpret the results, what it meant and much educational material about kreb cycle , etc. Could you perhaps ask your Doctor if he could request such a manual from Genova labs? At the time I had the test they would only give the manual to doctors and not patients...........but maybe things have changed. Unfortunately.......I no longer have the manual.
 

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
Hi Greg,
I am a (recently retired) research scientist and physician with an interest in mechanisms of ME. My first question would be, do you have any reason to think that this lab knows why they are doing these tests other than that they can sell them? That may sound cynical but it has to be the place to start. I personally cannot see how one could provide any useful advice on the basis of tests like this for someone with ME if we don't have any idea what is happening in ME anyway. If we knew that certain values on these tests were a sign of ME then I think we would all jump for joy because we had a biomarker. Metabolites in urine are likely to go up and down with all sorts of things like time of day, how much you have just drunk, and how active you are so one has to ask what their 'normal ranges' are supposed to be based on.
 

gregh286

Senior Member
Messages
976
Location
Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
hi guys,
thanks for all your inputs.
I can see where you are coming from jonathan, but as a CFS sufferer, I need some sort of marker to go on or a metric that I can benchmark myself against, I had hoped Krebs cycles would offer a starting point.
If we could see Kreb samples of non-CFS patients, then at least we could cross reference to null hypothesis, if we had a wide enough sample range.
If I ever get well again, it will interesting to compare a second test.
 

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
hi jonathan,
as a ex-research scientist, what do you think on myhill paper on ATP production/CFS:
http://www.ijcem.com/files/IJCEM1207003.pdf
The paper seems to be written by the people selling and using the test. I think one would need some independent confirmation from someone without a vested interest before taking this seriously. Also it is described as an audit rather than a formal research project. The reasons for this are not very clear but it looks as if it is a retrospective analysis, so it probably has no statistical base.

I appreciate that it would be nice to have something to measure but in science one has to be wary of measuring something irrelevant.
 
Last edited:

TigerLilea

Senior Member
Messages
1,147
Location
Vancouver, British Columbia
That may sound cynical but it has to be the place to start. I personally cannot see how one could provide any useful advice on the basis of tests like this for someone with ME if we don't have any idea what is happening in ME anyway. If we knew that certain values on these tests were a sign of ME then I think we would all jump for joy because we had a biomarker. Metabolites in urine are likely to go up and down with all sorts of things like time of day, how much you have just drunk, and how active you are so one has to ask what their 'normal ranges' are supposed to be based on.

Finally! Someone has voiced what I have always thought. I have always questioned whether any of these tests offered any information that actually had any real value. Is it only people with CFS/ME who get certain results, or would the general population, cancer patients, MS, Parkinsons all pretty much show the same thing?? I watch people stressing over their test results, stressing over whether they are taking the right supplements, the right dosages, and they are basing everything on some probably very meaningless test results. :eek: