Campaigners have reacted in dismay to the findings of a major medical study showing their favoured treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome – or ME – does not work.
Researchers compared several treatments for the condition and found no evidence that a technique called "pacing" has any impact.
Some 640 patients took part in the research. According to a report in The Lancet, two techniques led to improvements – graded exercise therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
The exercise therapy helps patients to step up their levels of physical activity whilst CBT teaches patients to overcome mental barriers to activity.
Adaptive pacing is meant to help patients adapt to their condition – by limiting their activity.
Some £4.2 million was spent on the project.
But Sir Peter Spencer, chief executive of Action for ME, said most patients found pacing most helpful. He said the research only found CBT and graded exercise to be "moderately effective" and had failed to establish how patients felt after treatment.
He said: "A smaller, more recent survey of 273 people with M.E. confirms that, inappropriately applied, graded exercise is still causing harm."
He added: "We are still in the dark about therapies for severely affected patients and for those who experience, for example, pain rather than fatigue as their primary symptom."
But researcher Professor Trudie Chalder from King’s College London, said: "It is very encouraging that we have found not one but two treatments that are similarly helpful to patients, which provides them with a choice.
"We now need to find out what the common essential ingredient is that makes these treatments work, and which particular types of patients will respond best to which therapy."
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