More research needed [UPDATED] (ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)

Member Name: magpie

Product:	ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Date:	14/01/01 (39 review reads)
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Reading the opinions of those sufferers and friends/relatives of sufferers has moved me immeasurably. This is a disorder I know little about. I know one of my friends had it, before I knew her, and I know one of my relatives had it.

As a scientist, I like to learn about new disorders, and so I turned to MEDLINE, a database of published research into medical issues. A search of published papers in 1999-2001 showed a grand total of 361 papers published. This compares with 3581 papers published in the same time interval studying Schizophrenia.

The nature of the research going on looks at many different facets of CFS - ranging from antecedant events (no more stressful events in CFS patients than in age matched controls prior to onset), familial attitude, and biological correlates (different pattern of enzymes and proteins in urine in CFS patients, changes in the response to stress hormones, changes in the hypothalamic-pituitary axis). Comparisons are made in the literature between patients with CFS and with depression - the biological effects of the two disorders are different. There is also research ongoing looking at possible treatments. A recent paper discusses something called 'multi-convergant therapy' and reports a 61% success rate. This therapy will now go into clinical trials.

From the recent literature then it is clear that
1. This is a real disease
2. There are biological correlates of this disease
3. Treatments can be developed for this disease
4. It is different in terms of psychological and biological effects from depression
5. Much more research is needed into this disorder, especially as it is recoverable from, and sufferers can have a normal life following the disease.

I am very grateful to all the sufferers of this disorder who have written on dooyoo, and informed us all about this horrid disorder. I'm going to go and do some more reading about this now...

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The Summer 2001 meeting of the British Association of Psychopharmacology - a society which includes clinical researchers and practicianers, and pre clinical researchers, is dedicating a seminar to the Psychopharmacology of CFS. I'll let you know what they say in August!

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