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Researchers at Stanford University and elsewhere say they've taken an important step in potentially helping people with a barely understood ailment that's long been viewed skeptically by the public and even some doctors. They claim to have created a blood test that may be able to readily identify people who have myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

The diagnostic test not only further validates a biological basis for sufferers' symptoms, the authors say, but may point to new avenues of treatment for the often unmanageable condition.

Currently, ME/CFS is a diagnostic label we give to people who experience prolonged, crippling fatigue—especially after exercising—and other symptoms like chronic pain, that can't be explained by any other known illness. The elusiveness of ME/CFS once led many doctors to consider it a psychological ailment, with people's symptoms blamed on a psychosomatic manifestation of their stress or anxiety. But in recent years, the medical community has by and large accepted that the symptoms of ME/CFS have a physical root, even if we still don't know how it happens.

[...] But the researchers behind this current study, published [eurekalert.org] Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, say they've devised a test that, at least in a small sample of people, can tell apart people with ME/CFS from the general population.

[...] But there's still a long way to go before their test should be considered a slam dunk, with many questions left unanswered. Researchers elsewhere have made early [cornell.edu]efforts [gizmodo.com] to find potential biomarkers for ME/CFS, for instance, but these biomarkers are unlikely to help doctors diagnose every case. That's not entirely surprising since there's no single cause or underlying mechanism that will explain every individual's symptoms (among the possible factors are viral infections, genetics, and thyroid problems). So while the team's test may have identified everyone with ME/CFS in their sample, that doesn't mean the same will be true once they start studying larger groups of people.

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