The symptoms of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are sometimes underestimated and ignored by many doctors and patients, but this syndrome is as serious as it gets and should be taken seriously because of the negative consequences it can have on the individual’s life and health condition.
The main indicator that someone is suffering from this illness is the fact that they feel consistently sick and tired. Stanford University took responsibility and researched ways of treating this illness and finding adequate ways of diagnosing it as well.
This illness is believed to have affected more than one million U.S citizens and it was officially named Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or simply Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Most patients treat this condition with indifference because they are led to believe that they simply experience feelings of sadness, tiredness or depression.
However, when the symptoms fail to go away, that is when individuals start worrying about their health condition. The symptoms can range from feeling mildly tired to being unable to get up from the bed.
The researchers from Stanford University found a connection between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and variation of cytokines, proteins that correlate with the severity of the condition. There were 192 participants in the study with this illness where almost 51 cytokines were investigated. It was found a dramatic variation of 17 cytokines among patients with mild and severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
The illness was treated cautiously and with skepticism in the past, but the data that was found help proving that the condition was not invented by the patient.
With the latest findings, it was shown a strong correlation between these cytokines and the symptoms of the illness. Dr. Jose Montoya states that the reason why doctors could not find any conclusive evidence in the past was that they did not know what to measure.
Moreover, these findings are vital for applying the appropriate treatment that involves anti-inflammatory or immune-modifying therapy. At the moment, the researchers hope that with this study there will be created a drug to relieve the symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
