By: Laurie Edwards for Fibroids1To patients, the painful and debilitating symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome are all too real. To others, the disease is still shrouded in mystery. But science is giving ammunition to the patients and physicians who deal with the condition on a daily basis. New studies found different biological origins of the disease: injuries to the brain and a genetic link.
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a disorder characterized by profound fatigue that is not improved by resting and is often made worse by physical or mental activity. Patients may also experience any combination of non-specific symptoms: Muscle pain, weakness, difficulty concentrating or with memory, insomnia and fatigue after exercise that lasts more than 24 hours.
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Could you have CFS?
Symptoms to look for:
Weakness/exhaustion lasting more than 24 hours after physical/mental activity
Unrefreshing sleep
Impairment of short-term memory or concentration
Muscle pain
Joint pain without redness or swelling
Headaches of a new type, pattern or severity
Tender armpit or neck lymph nodes
Sore throat
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the CFIDS Association of America.
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There is no test for CFS, so physicians use certain guidelines to diagnose it. In addition to severe fatigue that lasts longer than six months, for a diagnosis of CFS patients must have four or more of the following symptoms at the same time: Sore throat, tender lymph nodes, muscle pain, multi-joint pain without swelling, headaches of a new pattern or type, as well as impaired short-term memory and cognition.While the exact cause of the disease is still unknown, researchers at the University of New South Wales found that in certain patients, the brain had suffered a “hit and run injury” during early stages of glandular fever that resulted in prolonged sickness.
Glandular fever – the Epstein Barr virus, also known as the “kissing disease” – usually goes away within a few weeks. But in one in 10 patients, the fatigue can persist for six months or more, and in that case, the patients are diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.
“We believe that the parts of the brain that control perception of fatigue and pain get damaged during the acute infection phase of glandular fever,” said study researcher Professor Andrew Lloyd. The study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
These findings fall in line with the idea held by many experts that chronic fatigue syndrome is triggered by a virus like Epstein Barr.
“What keeps the illness going remains uncertain, but one possibility is that although the virus disappears, some part of the immune system’s response to the triggering infection then affects certain key aspects of the brain that are involved in the production of fatigue and the other characteristic neurological symptoms,” Lloyd continued.
In terms of why some patients develop chronic fatigue and others don’t, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have identified certain gene profiles that predispose some patients towards the condition.
In a series of articles in the April issue of Pharmacogenomics, CDC researchers identified genetic traits that lower the body’s ability to deal with everyday stressful situations and rebound from them.
Experts believe the multi-factorial origin of CFS is at least partially explained by the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), which is directly related to how we adapt to stressful situations. Over a lifetime, accumulated stress affects the HPA pathway and how our bodies handle stress.
The findings build on several years of data on the physiological markers of the disease and may be able to assist physicians in not only treating patients but also predicting which ones may suffer from the disease.
“People with CFS have certain genes that are related to those parts of the brain activity that mediate stress response, and they have different gene activity levels,” said Dr. William Reeves, head CFS scientist at the CDC.
“To some extent, genetics determine how you react to these stressors and, more important, they actually determine your subsequent reaction to stress later during the life span,” Dr. Reeve added.
