Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday August 01 2017, @09:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the too-tired-to-say-any-more dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Imagine feeling horribly sick, day after day, yet doctors repeatedly tell you they can't find anything wrong. That typically happens to people with the mysterious illness commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome. Research findings from Stanford University released Monday could point the way to a long-sought diagnostic laboratory test for the condition, and possibly a first-ever treatment.

Believed to affect at least a million people in the U.S., the condition is now increasingly termed myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS for short.

Many patients see the name "chronic fatigue syndrome" as trivializing and misleading, giving the impression that they're simply tired or depressed. In fact, they're experiencing profound exhaustion that isn't relieved with sleep, flu-like symptoms, muscle pain, "brain fog" and various other physical symptoms, all of which characteristically worsen with even minor exertion. (A 2015 Institute of Medicine report proposed the name "systemic exertion intolerance disease," but it hasn't really stuck.)

The symptoms can range from mild to extremely severe, with about a quarter of patients so ill they're mostly or completely confined to bed. Now, the Stanford researchers have linked ME/CFS to variations in certain cytokines, immune-signaling proteins, that track with illness severity. The study results were published online Monday in the the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

-- submitted from IRC


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by mojo chan on Wednesday August 02 2017, @12:34PM (1 child)

    by mojo chan (266) on Wednesday August 02 2017, @12:34PM (#547909)

    I have ME, and I can assure everyone that it's not psychological. There are psychological consequences of having it, sure, but they are not the cause.

    It really sucks. I want to get up and do something, feel motivated... But then I get up and my body feels heavy and stiff and painful, and tells me I need to rest.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 02 2017, @12:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 02 2017, @12:53PM (#547919)

    It sounds like being very hung over[1]. If a drug can do it to you, your body can also end up in that state other ways. It wouldn't surprise me if these are the same phenomenon.

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangover [wikipedia.org]