Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? It’s not you, it’s your immune system

This disease causes extreme fatigue and could be activated by the exaggerated response of your system.

An exaggerated immune system response can trigger a strange condition that causes extreme fatigue, a new study published Monday revealed.

According to CNN information ,  chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition that causes extreme tiredness, could be triggered by an overactive immune system,  according to the study.

Researchers in the UK found that the exaggerated immune response that can trigger fatigue, suggesting that this is how it begins condition called myalgic encephalomyelitis or ME.

Lead researcher Carmine Pariante, professor of biological psychiatry at King’s College London, said this was the first study to address the “role of the immune system in the development of the disease, a multisystem disorder of which little is known . “

Pariante explained that in many cases of chronic fatigue, patients recall an infection, such as a very bad cold or other viral infection, in the early stages of disease development.

To try to learn more about it, the team modeled a possible route to the treatment-based condition for chronic hepatitis C infections , called interferon alpha, because the treatment is known to induce persistent fatigue in some people.

An estimated 836,000 to 2.5 million Americans fight chronic fatigue syndrome, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (CDC).

For the study, the team made a possible route to the disease with a treatment for chronic hepatitis C infections, called interferon alfa,  because the treatment is known to induce persistent fatigue in some people.

The researchers measured fatigue and immune activity in 55 patients who received treatment for hepatitis C with interferon alfa. The patients were monitored before, during and after therapy:

• 18 patients developed fatigue that lasted more than six months after treatment.
• The group with long-lasting fatigue also experienced an increased immune response.
• Immune markers were measured with a blood test during the study.
• Higher levels of these molecules were observed in these patients before treatment had started.

“What these data strongly suggest is that people who develop  chronic fatigue syndrome in response to an infection do so because their immune system is primed to react hyperactively, ” Pariante explained.

Specialists conclude that, it is not clear why a person’s immune system could be prepared to react hyperactively, but it could probably be genetics.