Chronic fatigue syndrome is a condition that has baffled both the scientific and medical fields: it has no cure and there appear to be no reliable, effective treatments for it. But new research has found that this syndrome may be linked to 17 proteins signaling the immune system, called cytokines.
Researchers at the Stanford University Medical Center say that this, in turn, suggests that inflammation plays a role in chronic fatigue syndrome, which can continue for years in a patient. These findings can now help doctors diagnose the condition and tell how severe it is in a person, UPI reports.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is also called myalgic encephomyelitis, or ME/CFS. Dr. Mark Davis, senior author on the study and director of Stanford’s Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, said,
There’s been a great deal of controversy and confusion surrounding ME/CFS — even whether it is an actual disease. Our findings show clearly that it’s an inflammatory disease and provide a solid basis for a diagnostic blood test.
ME/CFS affects over 1 million people in the USA alone. Women are more likely to suffer from it compared to men, and the condition often occurs first during adolescence, then again in a patient’s 30s, the researchers say.
Dr. Jose Montoya, professor of infectious diseases and author on the study, said, “Chronic fatigue syndrome can turn a life of productive activity into one of dependency and desolation.”
Some people may recover within a year without needing medical attention, but for the most part, chronic fatigue syndrome persists for decades. The condition also causes flu-like symptoms, “brain fog,” heart problems, diarrhea, muscle pain or constipation. The wide range of symptoms makes it difficult for doctors to diagnose it.
Montoya said, “I have seen the horrors of this disease, multiplied by hundreds of patients. It’s been observed and talked about for 35 years now, sometimes with the onus of being described as a psychological condition. But chronic fatigue syndrome is by no means a figment of the imagination. This is real.”
There are some antiviral and anti-inflammatory medications that can relieve symptoms, along with drugs that target the immune system.
The researchers analyzed blood samples from 192 people suffering from the condition, and from 392 healthy people. The patients had been struggling with symptoms for over ten years, on average. Then they analyzed levels of cytokines.
Of the proteins they examined, 17 were linked to how severe the disease was, and 13 affected inflammation. One of the proteins was also more common in women than men, which could explain why women are more likely to develop the condition.
“For decades, the ‘case vs. healthy controls’ study design has served well to advance our understanding of many diseases,” Montoya said. “However, it’s possible that for certain pathologies in humans, analysis by disease severity or duration would be likely to provide further insights.”
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
