As part of my work as Volunteer Pharmacist & Research Officer for Action for M.E., I write a short and easy to digest summary of a selection of the latest studies.
We select the research we think would be most relevant to the lives of people with M.E. from the 15-30 papers now being published a month.
The summaries are an easier to understand translation of the scientific language within one paragraph, and not a critical analysis or our opinions on the research. We don’t necessarily endorse or support each of the papers, but provide an easy to read round-up so that people who don’t have a science background, or that have difficulty reading lots of text because of their M.E., can still follow the latest research.
Part of the role of a pharmacist is to explain to people the science of their medical conditions and the way their medicines work, so I really enjoy writing the research round-ups and the challenge of explaining the science of the studies within one paragraph. I hope they’re useful and make an interesting read.
I add a link on my blog to let people know that a new research round-up is ready to read on the Action for M.E. website.
Sign up to get an email from my blog when new research round-ups are ready to read
See the full list of research featured in previous round-ups
A Prescription for M.E. 
Research summaries are really useful thanks. I doubt anyone can understand all journal articles relevant to ME.
Something I wonder about though is ME Research UK do regular summaries of research news and ME Action do too (I wrote one of them a few months ago). Is there some way to co-ordinate and share resources? Seeing as it’s mostly pwme writing the summaries, could less spoons of energy be used to achieve this?
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Thanks, I’m glad you find them useful. As far as I’ve seen, the other sources you mention are much longer and more sciencey, whereas my brief from Action for M.E. for writing these is quite different: to write it in a way that anyone would understand without a science background, and within one paragraph for each paper if possible, so I have a very specific brief. My summaries are also included in the monthly Action for M.E. newsletter and also printed in InterAction magazine. If you’d like to give Action for M.E. this feedback directly, I’m sure they’d be pleased to hear your feedback and ideas. Thanks again for commenting 🙂
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These are very useful, thank you. You have made the science accessible to those of us who find the research articles baffling!
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Thank you, Samantha, it’s great to hear that you’re finding the research round-ups helpful 🙂
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