Response to headlines suggesting ME ‘is all in the mind’
Articles on Wednesday 28th October in the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and others reported that new research on ME/CFS showed it to be a disease that was “all in the mind”, and that the research contradicted the view that ME/CFS is “chronic and cannot be alleviated”.
The study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, was a long-term follow-up to a study that suggested that cognitive behaviour therapy and graded exercise therapy were moderately effective ways of treating some people with ME/CFS.
Lead author of the study, Michael Sharpe, Professor of Psychological Medicine, University of Oxford:
“The study did not find that ME/CFS is ‘all in the mind’ – in fact it didn’t look at causes of the disease at all. People think that if these kinds of treatments help, it is saying something about the nature of the illness, which of course isn’t true. This study tells us nothing about the cause of the illness, just how to help people who have it. ‘All in the mind’ is also a hugely misleading description of conditions that might be associated with psychological and social factors.
“The study did not contradict the view that ME/CFS is a chronic illness. These treatments, which we have found previously to be moderately helpful, are not a cure, and they do not benefit everyone. But the good news is, the benefit of these treatments is still apparent two years later, and they do not lead to a relapse of the illness. This new finding should reassure patients who want to try these treatments.”
Document type: For The Record
Published: 28 October 2015
Source: Sense About Science
