Research
Below are selected items from my study of the connection between Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME or ME/CFS). Please contact me if you would like more information.
“Hypothesis: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Mitochondrial
Hypo-function, and Hydrogen Sulfide”, 2007
This paper was written after I developed the hypothesis that chronic fatigue syndrome might represent something akin to a form of "hibernation" induced by the gas hydrogen sulfide. The possibility of hydrogen sulfide inducing a hypometabolic state of decreased energy production as a protective mechanism in CFS/ME was a new field of study; no one had looked at ME/CFS from this perspective before. At the time, only a handful of researchers around the world were studying hydrogen sulfide. The First International Conference on Hydrogen Sulfide in Biology was held in China in 2009, two years after I wrote this paper. The paper received widespread distribution in the ME/CFS and related communities. I was guided in this work by the inestimable Carl Peck, M.D., Ph.D., and former U.S. Assistant Surgeon General.
Testimony to the Department of Health and Human Services Chronic Fatigue Advisory Committee, October 28, 2008
I took a deep breath before delivering this testimony. Conveying the notion that people with ME/CFS could possibly be in a state of
suspended animation or something resembling hibernation was difficult enough, but suggesting that one of the deadliest gases known to man might have something to do with the illness—and that it could possibly be protective—was an even taller order. I had to make a strong connection between the deep sea origins of anaerobic bacteria which were able to chemically synthesize this gas instead of oxygen for energy and the fact that the energy-producing power plants of our cells, the mitochondria, might also use this gas under certain conditions. Who would have thought that our bodies could use both? (Hint: not all bacteria in our guts use oxygen; some use H2S instead.) To put this in a historical perspective, the Human Microbiome Project had not been completed and most people were still unaware of the importance of the bacteria in our bodies.
