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Fatigue! Part II - Maybe it is real?

Or it's actually Motivational Deficiency Disorder, MoDeD (pronounced Mo-Dee-Dee) for short.

In a report this week by Roy Moynihan who reports for the British Medical Journal Austrailian scientists may have come across the reason for extreme laziness.


The condition is claimed to affect up to one in five Australians and is characterised by overwhelming and debilitating apathy. Neuroscientists at the University of Newcastle in Australia say that in severe cases motivational deficiency disorder can be fatal, because the condition reduces the motivation to breathe.

Neurologist Leth Argos is part of the team that has identified the disorder, which can be diagnosed using a combination of positron emission tomography and low scores on a motivation rating scale, previously validated in elite athletes. "This disorder is poorly understood," Professor Argos told the BMJ. "It is underdiagnosed and undertreated."


Who knew? Maybe I have MoDeD, from my attempts to become an elite athlete. :) I better tell my doctor, so that he can prescribe the new drug that is being developed to treat this condition. Oh did I forget to mention that



Professor Argos is an adviser to a small Australian biotechnology company, Healthtec, which is currently concluding phase II trials of [I]ndolebant, a cannabinoid CB1 receptor antagonist.


While I have my doubts about this study, mostly because the physicians who first discovered this disorder are on the payroll of HealthTec, and the physicians hyping it most likely are, plus my gut feeling tells me it isn't real, I do remember a number of years back several elite woman athletes being diagnosed with I believe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which was attributed to the Epstein Barr Virus (EBV). Maybe this is just a rehash of that, but now there may be a drug to counteract it. I just don't know, but maybe time will tell.

I did particularly like the comment by Gary Schwitzer in his blog where he reports on this disorder.

I can't wait to see the ads for this [new drug]. I'm saving my spot on the sofa to watch them.


And I also want to thank Merrill Goozner for first bringing this report to my attention.
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