Comedian Miranda Hart has come under fire this week for suggesting she had found a cure for her chronic fatigue syndrome.
In her new autobiography, the 51-year-old, best known for her BBC comedy Miranda, recounted her three-decade battle that “left her bedridden and joyless”.
Initially diagnosed with agoraphobia, she later learned that her undiagnosed Lyme disease had developed into chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).
But in his book, the star suggests that the causes and solution to conditions such as long Covid and MS can be found in “the brain’s heightened stress response”.
Critics have slammed the Call The Midwife actor for peddling “pseudoscience” and holding “dangerously outdated” views on the conditions.
In her new autobiography, the 51-year-old, best known for her BBC comedy Miranda, recounted her three-decade health battle that initially saw her diagnosed with agoraphobia.
In response to the online backlash, Hart acknowledged that people had misunderstood that reducing stress was beneficial for her symptoms and that it didn’t mean she had found a cure.
In her book, the star suggests the causes and solution to conditions such as long Covid and MS lie in “the brain’s heightened stress response”.
Vikings star actress Jennie Jacques, who developed ME in 2019, said: “Nothing personal at all @mermhart… I think your intentions are in the right place, but it would be irresponsible of me not to speak up.”
‘With great power comes great responsibility. “Between 80 and 90 percent of this narrative is dangerously outdated.”
Frances Ryan, journalist and disability activist, also wrote in X: ‘Miranda Hart’s new memoir about chronic illness seems very well-intentioned, but this pseudoscience is worrying.
“If you write a book after you’ve recovered, you have a particular responsibility to be accurate to readers who are also desperate to recover.”
In response to the online backlash, Hart claimed she had been misunderstood.
He added that reducing stress was beneficial for his symptoms and did not mean he had found a cure.
Some also noted that in 2021, Ms. Hart endorsed a book by Alex Howard called Decode Your Fatigue.
The cover features a quote from the comedian: “A practical and hopeful book to help people move from debilitating fatigue to a joyful, purposeful life once again.”
Howard is the founder of Optimum Health Clinic, which teaches courses on the Lightning Process and claims to “train the brain to protect itself from tired thoughts,” including treating conditions such as MS, depression and chronic pain.
But in 2022, health watchdog the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended that GPs do not use the Lightning process.
“The Lightning process is not a treatment we endorse or recommend for people with ME/CFS,” says Dr Charles Shepherd, medical adviser to the UK MS Association.
Meanwhile, studies linking stress to these long-term conditions have long been divided.
Research into long Covid is also still in its early stages.
Many people in the chronic illness community say they don’t like the presumption that stress caused their conditions, and report that this stigma itself can cause stress.
There is currently no cure for MS and no single test that can diagnose it.
Instead, treatment revolves around therapy, lifestyle changes, and the use of some medications to relieve symptoms such as pain and sleeping problems.
According to the NHS, this may include cognitive behavioral therapy and advice on how to make the best use of the energy you have.
A current study, led by Professor Chris Ponting, an expert in genomic biology at the University of Edinburgh, aims to find the genetic causes of this condition.
Around 18,000 people with MS in the UK They have provided DNA samples for analysis.
The comedian was officially diagnosed while in lockdown and believes she contracted Lyme disease when she was 14 after battling unpleasant flu-like symptoms in Virginia.
Professor Ponting he told the BBC: ‘We hope the results can tell us what is going wrong for so many people.
‘A radical change in research and clinical practice will be needed so that people with MS in the UK are treated in the same way as most people with other diseases are treated.
“They are forgotten, ignored and abandoned.”
Its goal is to point out where research should go and accelerate steps towards diagnostic tests and new drug treatments.
If, for example, genetics suggest that the immune system is involved, then a whole army of immunologists who have been working on other diseases can be brought in, he said.
The symptoms of CFS vary from patient to patient and over time.
The most common include extreme physical and mental tiredness that does not go away with rest, as well as problems sleeping and with thinking, memory, and concentration.
Other symptoms include muscle or joint pain, sore throat, headaches, flu-like symptoms, dizziness and nausea, as well as a fast or irregular heartbeat.
In its mildest form, CFS sufferers can perform everyday activities with difficulty, but may have to give up hobbies and social activities to rest.
Patients with more severe CFS are essentially bedridden and may receive full-time care without being able to feed themselves, wash themselves, or even go to the bathroom without assistance.
Charities say there are at least 240,000 people with MS living in the UK, although exact figures are difficult to pin down.
Around one in four of these people suffer from severe or very severe MS, according to the charity ME Research UK.
Getting rid of a tick from your own skin is essential to avoid the risk of infection or contracting other diseases, including Lyme disease. The NHS has a four-step routine to help detect and safely remove ticks
Lyme disease is a tick-borne bacterial infection and can cause general flu-like symptoms, including fatigue, headache, joint inflammation and fever, which can last a few weeks, but for reasons not yet known. Understandably, some patients suffer for years.
In her memoir, Miranda said she struggled to deal with the “disturbing neurological symptoms” she first experienced when she was 14 years old.
He explained that everything got “considerably” worse when he reached his 40s, along with increasing fatigue and cell depletion.
However, on Instagram this week, he said: ‘I’m not saying I’ve found a cure nor do I claim any deep medical knowledge for ME.
“It is a frightening and misunderstood condition and many are not getting any relief.” What hurts my heart.
‘I simply believe that reducing the fear of living with an illness can only help our quality of life.
‘But it is very difficult and I can only speak from my experience. It was an investigation that also encompasses all aspects of life.’
She has now stopped commenting on her Instagram posts and shared a separate video in which she said: “I’m not a doctor.”
In her book, the actress also revealed that she found it easier to talk about her illness with others after Covid made headlines during the pandemic.
‘After a long time of Covid, this is better understood; “I can say I’ve had Lyme for a long time and people understand it a little more easily,” she wrote.
‘Year after year, the ‘chronic fatigue, ME, long-term post-viral condition’ group is becoming more visible. I hope so, because it is a very real and serious physical illness.
Recalling when she received her diagnosis, she also said: “I walked out of that Zoom call, closed my laptop and sat there, still and horrified.
“So many emotions surprised me, but I also immediately felt deep sadness and disappointment.
‘For more than three decades I KNEW something was wrong.
“I remembered all the times I had told different doctors: ‘I feel toxic and poisoned, or it’s like I have the flu every day but I don’t have a temperature.’
‘(It’s amazing how the body can sometimes literally tell us what’s going on.) I felt the anger rise at times when I was told I must have agoraphobia.
“I was trying to treat it as such, when it turned out that it was the lack of energy and extreme sensitivity to light and sound that caused my body to collapse when I went out in any type of activity or stimulating environment.”
