Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), who’ve been told it’s all in their head, can take comfort in a new study from Jackson Lab, linking “invisible” gut microbiome to CFS.
“Some physicians doubt it as a real disease due to the absence of clear laboratory markers, sometimes attributing it to psychological factors,” said Dr. Derya Unutmaz, the study’s author and JAX professor in immunology.
The findings, published in Nature Medicine, had a 90% accuracy rate in identifying individuals with CFS, “which is significant because doctors currently lack reliable biomarkers for diagnosis,” Unutmaz said in a statement.
The study also adds to what doctors know so far about long COVID. Extensive research has found similarities between CFS and long COVID, including changes in heart rate and blood pressure from moving from a seated to a standing position.
“There are still very many people who are experiencing long COVID, and fatigue is a very prominent symptom in many of these individuals,” said Dr. Harlan Krumholz, an infectious disease specialist at Yale Medicine, specializing in long COVID.
Jackson researchers analyzed data from the Bateman Horne Center, a CFS, long COVID, and fibromyalgia research center in Salt Lake City, Utah. They utilized an AI tool to integrate gut metagenomics, plasma metabolomics, immune cell profiles, blood test data, and clinical symptoms from 153 patients and 96 healthy individuals over four years.
Even though the findings require additional validation, they form a stepping stone to future treatment, the authors said.
“We may be able to intervene — through diet, lifestyle, or targeted therapies — in ways that genomic data alone can’t offer,” said Julia Oh, lead researcher.
Chronic fatigue syndrome a common aliment, doctors say
Chronic fatigue in long COVID patients keeps them from returning to work and caring for their families, said Diana Berrent Güthe, founder of Pandemic Prep Consulting and SurvivorCorps.
“There are things that can help alleviate symptoms but the barrier to treatment is often the doctor's own skepticism about the patient's complaints,” she said. “Nowhere do you see more medical gaslighting than in this area. It's like we're playing basketball using a football and expecting the game to go on.”
In the U.S., CFS affects between 836,000 and 3.3 million individuals — many undiagnosed — and costs the economy $18 to $51 billion annually due to health care expenditures and lost productivity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Symptoms of CFS fluctuate day-to-day and include extreme exhaustion after physical or mental exercise, problems with memory or thinking skills, dizziness that worsens with moving from lying down or sitting to standing, muscle or joint pain, and unrefreshing sleep, according to the Mayo Clinic.
