The Director of OMF’s Ronald G. Tompkins Harvard ME/CFS Collaboration, Dr. David Systrom, recently attended the International ME/CFS Conference 2025 held in Berlin, Germany. As part of the conference, he gave two presentations—one on circulatory dysfunction, and another on a randomized controlled trial of low-dose naltrexone and Mestinon in ME/CFS.
In his presentation on circulatory dysfunction, Dr. Systrom discussed invasive cardiopulmonary exercise tests (iCPETs), preload failure, and impaired systemic oxygen extraction in ME/CFS and Long COVID. He also talked about the use of pyridostigmine (Mestinon) and the resulting increase in cardiac output seen in people with ME/CFS. Watch the recording of Dr. Systrom’s presentation on circulatory dysfunction here.
At the conference, Dr. Systrom also presented on OMF’s Life Improvement Trial (LIFT)—a randomized clinical trial of Mestinon and low-dose naltrexone (LDN). He reviewed the hypothesized mechanisms of action of the two drugs, preliminary results from a retrospective study of the drugs’ efficacy, and the design of the LIFT. Check out the LIFT protocol paper preprint on Research Square and the video of Dr. Systrom’s presentation here.
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