Physicians are also mystified by stroke fatigue. Would looking into this help solve the stroke problem? But we have NO stroke leader to bring this idea to, so it will die on the vine. Survivors are screwed as they always will be until we kill off the current fucking failures of stroke associations.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2016/06/indicator-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-found-gut-bacteria
Physicians have been mystified by chronic fatigue syndrome, a
condition where normal exertion leads to debilitating fatigue that isn’t
alleviated by rest. There are no known triggers, and diagnosis requires
lengthy tests administered by an expert.
Due to this lack of information, some people have even suggested the disease may be psychosomatic.
Now,
for the first time, Cornell researchers report they have identified
biological markers of the disease in gut bacteria and inflammatory
microbial agents in the blood.
In a study published June 23 in the journal Microbiome,
the team describes how they correctly diagnosed myalgic
encephalomyeletis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) in 83 percent of
patients through stool samples and blood work, offering a noninvasive
diagnosis and a step toward understanding the cause of the disease.
“Our
work demonstrates that the gut bacterial microbiome in ME/CFS patients
isn’t normal, perhaps leading to gastrointestinal and inflammatory
symptoms in victims of the disease,” said Maureen Hanson,
the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the Department of Molecular
Biology and Genetics and the paper’s senior author. “Furthermore, our
detection of a biological abnormality provides further evidence against
the ridiculous concept that the disease is psychological in origin.”
Ruth Ley, associate professor in the Departments of Molecular Biology and Genetics and Microbiology, is a co-author.
“In
the future, we could see this technique as a complement to other
noninvasive diagnoses, but if we have a better idea of what is going on
with these gut microbes and patients, maybe clinicians could consider
changing diets, using prebiotics such as dietary fibers or probiotics to
help treat the disease,” said Ludovic Giloteaux, a postdoctoral
researcher in both Hanson’s and Ley’s labs and first author of the
study.
Researchers have evidence that an overactive immune system
plays a role in chronic fatigue. Symptoms include fatigue even after
sleep, muscle and joint pain, migraines and gastrointestinal distress.
One hallmark of the condition is post-exertional malaise, meaning
patients may take weeks to recover from minor exertion. To test for
ME/CFS, clinicians may give patients a cardio-pulmonary exercise test
where they ride a bike until they become fatigued. If the test is
repeated the following day, ME/CFS patients usually cannot reproduce
their performance from the first day.
“That’s very typical and
specific of people with ME/CFS, because healthy people, or even people
who have heart disease, can reproduce the exercise on the second day,
but these people cannot,” Giloteaux said.
In the study, Ithaca
campus researchers collaborated with Dr. Susan Levine, an ME/CFS
specialist in New York City, who recruited 48 people diagnosed with
ME/CFS and 39 healthy controls to provide stool and blood samples.
The
researchers sequenced regions of microbial DNA from the stool samples
to identify different types of bacteria. Overall, the diversity of types
of bacteria was greatly reduced and there were fewer bacterial species
known to be anti-inflammatory in ME/CFS patients compared with healthy
people, an observation also seen in people with Crohn’s disease and
ulcerative colitis.
At the same time, the researchers discovered
specific markers of inflammation in the blood, likely due to a leaky gut
from intestinal problems that allow bacteria to enter the blood,
Giloteaux said.
Bacteria in the blood will trigger an immune response, which could worsen symptoms.
The
researchers have no evidence to distinguish whether the altered gut
microbiome is a cause or a whether it is a consequence of disease,
Giloteaux added.
In the future, the research team will look for
evidence of viruses and fungi in the gut, to see whether one of these or
an association of these along with bacteria may be causing or
contributing to the illness.
Co-authors include Julia Goodrich, a doctoral student, and William Walters, a postdoctoral researcher, both in Ley’s lab.
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
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