Sandbox Master list with definitions

• The most obvious reason for this of course is mitochondrial failure, which I believe is a major cause of chronic fatigue syndrome.

If mitochondria cannot supply sufficient energy to cells, cells will switch into glycolysis with a resultant build up of lactic acid. In the heart, this switch into anaerobic metabolism because of mitochondrial failure will present with angina (chest pain). There are many causes of mitochondrial failure (see handout - causes of CFS, mitochondrial failure and mitochondrial function test) such as lack of nutrients for mitochondria to work (D-ribose, magnesium, Vitamin B3, co-enzyme Q10 and acetyl L-carnitine), toxic stress (which is blocking oxidative phosphorylation, or blocking translocator protein function), poor antioxidant status (so mitochondria are damaged by biochemical activity), poor hormonal control (poor levels of thyroid or adrenal hormones) and so on.

• Lack of oxygen to muscles.

There was a fascinating paper in the Lancet recently by John Yudkin explaining how a high carbohydrate diet could cause high blood pressure. He demonstrated that high levels of sugar in the blood were very damaging to muscles and the body compensates for this by shutting down the blood supply to muscles when blood sugar levels are running too high. Whilst this protects muscles from damage by sugar, it restricts oxygen supply to that muscle. Therefore one can see how if that muscle was asked to suddenly work quite hard, it would rapidly switch into glycolysis with production of lactic acid. Therefore I suspect high carbohydrate or high sugar diets are a risk factor for fibromyalgia. In horses with azoturia, a high carbohydrate diet is a known risk factor.

• Exercise - too much or too little!

Muscles are extremely dynamic organs. Blood is obviously supplied to them by the heart. However, for blood to come out of muscles requires the muscle itself to contract. Thanks to a serious of valves within veins, when muscles contract they squeeze the blood out of themselves, then as they relax the m