Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 10, 1990 TAG: 9007100053
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine say there is no apparent link between chronic fatigue and exposure to the Epstein-Barr virus, which had been tied to the syndrome.
Their study is the third to find no connection between the virus and the ailment, which became nationally known in 1985 as "yuppie plague" because baby boomers who are overachievers make up a disproportionate number of victims.
Dr. Deborah Gold, a virologist at Children's Hospital Medical Center in Seattle, said victims of chronic fatigue syndrome who were studied had a history of clinical depression that preceded their other symptoms. "Depression may be the primary disorder in some patients," Gold reported last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The research is likely to rekindle a 5-year-old medical controversy. Many scientists, including some at the federal Centers for Disease Control, remain confident that such a syndrome exists. Victims endure a wide variety of symptoms, including tiredness, lethargy, confusion, temporary memory loss, swollen glands, fever and sore throats.
"To lay this all off as depression probably oversimplifies the problem," said Dr. Gary Holmes, a CDC epidemiologist who conducted some of the first studies of the syndrome. He said some victims have no clinical signs of depression.
CDC researchers are gearing up for a major study this fall of chronic fatigue to try to determine how widespread the disorder is and whether there are common factors that offer clues to it. Researchers plan to study cases in and around Atlanta, Grand Rapids, Mich., and Reno, Lake Tahoe and Carson City, Nev.
The cause of the disorder has eluded medical experts. Some doctors initially suspected the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis and chicken pox. Others blamed other viruses or immune system abnormalities.
Holmes said the cause may involve more than one factor, such as a virus triggered by stress in a susceptible person. Other researchers have found that people infected with a newly recognized herpes virus are more likely to suffer some symptoms of the syndrome.
The ailment became nationally known when nearly 200 residents of Lake Tahoe complained of tiredness and other symptoms. But some experts believe the disorder may have been described as early as the 1860s, when it was known as neurasthenia, a supposed neurosis characterized by weakness and fatigue.
Similar disorders since have been identified as anemia, chronic bacterial infections, hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and systemic candidiasis, or body-wide yeast infections. Since 1985, cases have been reported in virtually every state and many foreign countries.
The latest study is almost certain to anger those who suffer from the ailment.
"Anyone who has endured these physical symptoms as long as we have will be depressed, but depression is not the cause of the illness," said Sherry Stockton, a founder of the Atlanta support group for chronic fatigue sufferers.
Stockton, a mother of two, first developed her illness in 1975, with headaches, muscle aches and joint aches. "Then I ended up with paralysis of my bladder," she said. The paralysis ebbed, but the disease has gotten worse.
"I used to have episodes of feeling good," she said. "Now my good periods have become fewer. In the last two years I've been sick every day."
by CNB