Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Brains of People with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Offer Clues About Disorder
New York Times ^ | November 24, 2014 | David Tuller

Posted on 12/03/2014 11:08:37 AM PST by Seizethecarp

Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome are accustomed to disappointment. The cause of the disorder remains unknown; it can be difficult to diagnose, and treatment options are few.

Many patients are still told to seek psychiatric help. But two recent studies — one from investigators at Stanford a few weeks ago and another from a Japanese research team published earlier this year — have found that the brains of people with chronic fatigue syndrome differ from those of healthy people, strengthening the argument that serious physiological dysfunctions are at the root of the condition.

Both studies were small, however, and their results must be replicated before firm conclusions can be drawn. Still, other studies presented at scientific conferences this year also have demonstrated physiological dysfunctions in these patients.

In the most recent study, published by the journal Radiology, researchers at Stanford University compared brain images of 15 patients with the condition to those of 14 healthy people. The scientists found differences in both the white matter, the long, cablelike nerve structures that transmit signals between parts of the brain, and the gray matter, the regions where these signals are processed and interpreted.

The most striking finding was that in people with the disorder, one neural tract in the white matter of the right hemisphere appeared to be abnormally shaped, as if the cablelike nerve structures had crisscrossed or changed in some other way. Furthermore, the most seriously ill patients exhibited the greatest levels of this abnormality.

The researchers also found in M.E./C.F.S. patients a thickening of the gray matter at the two points of the right hemisphere connected by this particular neural tract. And the overall volume of white matter in the brains of patients was reduced, compared with the brains of people without the disorder.

(Excerpt) Read more at well.blogs.nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: brain; cfs; disorders; mecfs; medicine; montoya; radiology; stanford
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-56 next last
To: Uncle Miltie; petercooper
Until you have a loved one who has this condition I recommend that you pause before making such statements.

My mother has it in spades. It is likely to be a mixed herpes/CMV/Epstein-Barr viral infection that is intra-neuronal and exceedingly difficult to diagnose.

I have spent hundreds of hours trying to get tone-deaf doctors to make the smallest effort to consider anti-viral treatment.

100 Years ago some might have claimed that diabetics were making it up.

21 posted on 12/03/2014 12:55:31 PM PST by corkoman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie

You do not have a clue.


22 posted on 12/03/2014 12:57:35 PM PST by MamaB
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: MamaB

I am sorry for your loss.


23 posted on 12/03/2014 1:01:34 PM PST by Excellence (Marine mom since April 11, 2014)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: corkoman

I suppose it depends on your experience.


24 posted on 12/03/2014 1:08:39 PM PST by Uncle Miltie ('The HERO of the (0bamacare) story is Mitt Romney' - "Stupid" Jonathan Gruber)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: MamaB

Ah, but I do.

Exercise cured it. But non-exercise causes relapse, in which there is no energy to do anything.

So, if you allow yourself to waste away, you waste away! Surprise!

That’s my experience with my ex, who was fine when she exercised. When she slacked off, she was a lump of non-humanity. Mostly she slacked off. No muscle tone. Everything hurt. She slept infinite hours. With or without the fracking opiates.

Huge waste of humanity on a “syndrome” caused by not moving your butt.

Yes, I’m experienced with it, and it ruined the lives of so many over a simple unwillingness to move her lazy a$$.


25 posted on 12/03/2014 1:12:16 PM PST by Uncle Miltie ('The HERO of the (0bamacare) story is Mitt Romney' - "Stupid" Jonathan Gruber)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie

So laziness causes a person to have a fever?


26 posted on 12/03/2014 1:15:03 PM PST by Toespi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

Just to be sure - you had more than just the Lyme titre done, right? Because those are notoriously unreliable (something like a 50% error rate). As of a few years ago, the only reliable diagnostic blood test for Lyme in the country was through a lab called Igenex, out of SF, Ca.


27 posted on 12/03/2014 1:20:10 PM PST by fr_freak
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

"Why are you so tired?"

" Because I have such a huge brain."

28 posted on 12/03/2014 1:22:41 PM PST by jetson (Can I catch you a delicious bass...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Toespi

I’m totally frosted. Thousands of doctor visits. NOTHING.

There was never a single physically diagnosable thing wrong.

But exercise cured it.

Argue all you want with my experience. Feel free.

I’m frosted. That lady ruined my life because she was LAZY.


29 posted on 12/03/2014 1:27:15 PM PST by Uncle Miltie ('The HERO of the (0bamacare) story is Mitt Romney' - "Stupid" Jonathan Gruber)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie

Well, at least a solid decade. I’m better now. She can rot, and I am free.


30 posted on 12/03/2014 1:28:13 PM PST by Uncle Miltie ('The HERO of the (0bamacare) story is Mitt Romney' - "Stupid" Jonathan Gruber)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

I was going to read the full article but was just too tired...


31 posted on 12/03/2014 1:29:33 PM PST by newfreep ("Evil succeeds when good men do nothting" - Edmund Burke)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie

My late daughter got plenty of exercise plus she was in the marching high school band. So, that was not an answer. When she got sick in Austria, that was her big problem. Walking, marching without enough rest and sleep. Her dr. said her immune system was shot. Glad it worked for you. There is not one answer for everyone. She then developed Crohn’s Disease and complications of that caused her death.


32 posted on 12/03/2014 1:36:39 PM PST by MamaB
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: corkoman; Uncle Miltie

I recommend you do some serious research on fungus. Doug Kaufmann’s ‘Know The Cause’ is a great place to start. He has linked fungal overgrowth to all of the conditions you mention. The key is to starve the fungus of sugar/starches. You should start your Mom on his Phase 1 diet. Watch the show. It’s at the site.

http://knowthecause.com/

http://knowthecause.com/index.php/health-blog/doctors-and-trade-professionals/1366-higher-levels-of-mycotoxins-found-in-urine-of-patients-with-chronic-fatigue-syndrome

http://candidaclub.org/shawns-page/is-fungus-making-us-sick-tired-old-and-fat/

http://www.nsc24.com/fibromyalgia.htm


33 posted on 12/03/2014 1:37:53 PM PST by petercooper (Liberalism = Amnesty = Open Borders = Illegal Immigration = Ebola = Obama)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: dainbramaged
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome = extreme laziness.

Fibromyalgia = extreme selfishness.

Care to site your sources or are you just being an ignorant asshole?

34 posted on 12/03/2014 1:43:07 PM PST by Hot Tabasco (Alexander Graham Bell's famous words: "Answer the damn phone you idiot!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Nepeta

Yup, I had this too in my 20s and 30s. I got it after coming down with a strange, severe form of what was surmised to be bacterial pneumonia. I was a marathoner at the time, at college in Boston. In November I was running the river loop from Newton, a total of 18.8 miles, 5 days a week. Then 10 miles on my off day. I was taking full time classes at B.C. and also had a part time job. By February I was no longer running or working and sleeping 18 hr.s when not in school. I eventually had to drop out of college due to a lack of money and energy.

I don’t know if it was ‘this’ CFS but it was definitely some form of CFS. It lasted over 10 years.


35 posted on 12/03/2014 1:43:50 PM PST by Justa
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Gay State Conservative

CFS = 1990’s
Fibromyalgia = 2000’s
Chronic Lyme Disease = 2010’s.

They are the most common self-diagnosed diseases. Doctors also dump people into them to keep from dealing with them, which makes it hard for the people who really have the disease.


36 posted on 12/03/2014 1:47:17 PM PST by AppyPappy (If you are not part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: dainbramaged

I sure hope you don’t come down with one of them. Talk to my husband before you make this judgement. At one time during the worst of the Fibro, all he had to do was touch me, and I screamed with pain. I have continued working and living a productive life. You need an attitude adjusment.


37 posted on 12/03/2014 1:49:34 PM PST by KYGrandma (The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home.....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

>> people with the disorder, one neural tract in the white matter of the right hemisphere appeared to be abnormally shaped

Consequence or cause?

I wonder if any studies have been conducted within environments that have modified days cycles; e.g., 32 hour day instead of the normal 24 hour day. Could be a challenge for the technicians.


38 posted on 12/03/2014 1:49:35 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Uncle Miltie

I understand, but you just can’t discount the existence of an illness because of your singular experience. Because she didn’t have it doesn’t mean others don’t. I do not have CFS, but I sympathize with those that do, fatigue is horrendous.


39 posted on 12/03/2014 1:50:13 PM PST by Toespi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: Hot Tabasco

I was told I have fibro decades ago. That does not bother me nearly as much as costochondritis does. I rarely have a flare-up but when I do, it seems like a truck stopped on my chest. I found that stress makes it worse. My dr said I would be fine if I did not have to breathe. I want to do that though! When I do have a flare-up, I get lumps in my upper chest. Forget what the dr said they were. It scared one dr and he made me have a mammogram which was fine.


40 posted on 12/03/2014 1:50:23 PM PST by MamaB
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-56 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson