Between 1 to 4 million Americans suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, an unrelenting feeling of fatigue that persists for at least six months. There hasn't been much for doctors to look for in diagnosing CFS -- the diagnosis right now is entirely symptom-based. However, a new study shows three distinct differences in the brains of people with CFS and healthy people, which might ultimately change the way the syndrome is diagnosed.
The study was published today, October 29, in the journal Radiology.
Sufferers of CFS often hear misunderstandings of their condition. People may even believe that they are hypochondriacs. However, the syndrome can be extremely debilitating, and can affect people's lives for 10, 20 or even 30 years.
"CFS is one of the greatest scientific and medical challenges of our time. Its symptoms often include not only overwhelming fatigue but also joint and muscle pain, incapacitating headaches, food intolerance, sore throat, enlargement of the lymph nodes, gastrointestinal problems, abnormal blood-pressure and heart-rate events, and hypersensitivity to light, noise or other sensations," said Dr. Jose Montoya, the study's senior author.
Dr. Montoya wanted to see if he could find some kind of physical evidence of CFS. It turns out that he could. The team used three high-tech imaging methods to uncover these brain anomalies in CFS patients. The study consisted of 15 CFS patients and 14 healthy patients. They found that the patients with CFS consistently had fewer nerve tracts, called "white matter," in their brains compared to healthy people. CFS is believed to be a chronic inflammatory disease, and chronic inflammation is known to damage white matter.
The team also found that the severity of a patient's CFS correlated strongly to abnormalities found in the right arcuate fasciculus in the right hemisphere of the brain. The more severe the abnormality was, the worse the person's CFS tended to be.
Dr. Montoya hopes to use these new findings to create a more effective form of treatment for CFS.
Dr. Michael Zeineh, one of the researchers who worked on this project, said that identifying a physical marker of CFS was one of the first necessary steps to identifying a treatment method. Understanding the syndrome is essential before coming up with treatment.
