Gupta program

The Gupta programme or Gupta Amydala Retraining describes itself as a "brain training" or "brain re-wiring" technique designed to alter amygdala and insular activity in order to treat or cure chronic diseases including chronic fatigue syndrome. The Gupta programme is based on the amygdala hypothesis of chronic fatigue syndrome, which is unproven and has not been a significant focus of research. The Gupta Programme has previously claimed to treat fibromyalgia and electrical sensitivities as well as ME/CFS.

Evidence
Evidence is largely limited to patient self-reports. The British Advertising Standards Authority has upheld complaints about the Gupta Programme being falsely advertised as a treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome/ME, fibromyalgia and "electrical sensitivities" due to the lack of scientific evidence supporting this claim.

Reported harms
Some people have reported being harmed by brain training programmes, including Jen Brea, who has ME/CFS, mold-related illness and mast cell activation syndrome, and Ana Harris, who had mold-related illness.

Theory
Both Brea and Harris criticized the assumption that symptoms were caused by an overactivation/reactivity in the brain that was claimed to be unrelated to the underlying illness, an assumption which is presented as an uncontested fact by the Gupta Programme.

This belief of "symptoms without disease" is also core part of the cognitive behavioral model of ME/CFS and an hypothesis underlying the use of graded exercise therapy and the psychosomatic approach to medically unexplained symptoms, treatments associated with significant rates of harm. This "not a disease" theory provides justification for the Gupta Programme teaching patients to ignore or minimize their symptoms―despite significant the evidence that ME/CFS has an underlying disease process, and the World Health Organization classes it as a neurological disease rather than a set of symptoms that may not indicate disease.

Learn more

 * Advertising Standards Association complaint result (2018)