Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is a Real Illness

Chronic fatigue syndrome is a real illness, and it seems to be linked to specific changes in a person’s immune system, especially the additional chemical receptors that regulate the responses in the immune system. According to Dr. Mady Horning, head author of a study, there is increasing information that chronic fatigue is caused by an improperly functioning immune system.

Horning stated, a new chronic fatigue patient’s immune system seems unable to reduce its response or shut down to an infection that has gone. Instead, cytokines, the chemical receptors that organize the system’s numerous cell types, are drawn out of the immune system. The immune system is not able to spring back after the cytokines response, and after the disease has disappeared it is supposed to shut off and this is not happening.

Doctors can look for higher levels of these chemicals in the blood of patients and possibly aid in the diagnosis of chronic fatigue, Horning stated. Horning added that treating chronic fatigue early may reduce its impact on patients’ lives in the future. In the past, chronic fatigue was treated as an emotional issue, not a physical one, and now another report by the Institute of Medicine has declared that chronic fatigue syndrome is a valid and real illness and, as such, should be treated as a disease. Horning’s study was published Feb. 27 in the Science Advances journal.

The numbers vary on how many people hurt from chronic fatigue and go as high as 2.5 million people affected. Over 84 percent of the people are not treated, it happens in women more than men, and tend to occur more with people in their 40’s and 50’s. Horning added that it is not a psychological condition, it is a biological one.

Researchers in Horning’s study examined the blood sample data, looking at the presence of chemicals and cells related to the immune system. The changes in the cytokines are only visible in the disease in the early stages, and do not show up in the chronic patients.

The findings are helping doctors to know that at different stages in the chronic fatigue disease that they will need to give the patients different protocol treatments. This is encouraging for the long-term sufferers of this condition to have a different plan of action and possibly reduce or eliminate the disease all together.

Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, founder of Fatigue & Fibromyalgia Practitioners Network, also stated that the research recently shows the link between a defective immune system and chronic fatigue syndrome. Chronic fatigue was harder to diagnose until now because it is a matter of tracking the particular symptoms and ruling out other disorders that have similar symptoms, and with the blood tests now they will be able to diagnose this disease.

When detected early, less than three years of having the disease, there is hope for chronic fatigue syndrome patients to get the proper protocol to remedy this disease. There are multiple studies out there now to confirm that chronic fatigue syndrome is a real illness and disease and not made up in the head, like so many sufferers had been told.

By Michele Enli

Sources:
U.S. News & World Report
Huffington Post
Healthline
Photo by Pat Dye Flickr Page – License