Virus Link To Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

A group of viruses known to cause respiratory and gut infections may also be a major trigger for chronic fatigue syndrome, known as CFS. In a newly published study, four out of five CFS patients showed evidence of chronic enterovirus infection in stomach tissue biopsies, compared with just one in five healthy people.

Enteroviruses are very common, second only to the common cold viruses as the most common viral infections in humans, according to the CDC. Most people who are infected with an enterovirus have no symptoms at all.

Most of the biopsy specimens from patients with gut problems showed evidence of mild long term inflammation, although few were infected with Helicobacter pylori, a common bacterial infection associated with inflammation.

But more than 80% of the specimens from the ME patients tested positive for enteroviral particles compared with only seven of the 34 specimens from healthy people.In a significant proportion of patients, the initial infection had occurred many years earlier.