New Study Debunks Virus Theory for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Confirming earlier scientific doubts, a new study concludes that chronic fatigue syndrome is not caused by two viruses known as XMRV and pMLV.

Researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Columbia University and other institutions, including some scientists who did the original research, examined 147 patients with chronic fatigue syndrome from sites across the country and compared them to 146 healthy patients.

Bottom line? "This analysis reveals no evidence of either XMRV or pMLV infection," the authors wrote. The study is published in the September/October issue of the journal mBio.

Chronic fatigue syndrome, also called myalgic encephalomyelitis, affects about 1 million people in the United States, according to a Columbia news release, with women more likely to have the diagnosis. The condition is marked by unexplained fatigue that doesn't get better with bed rest.

Patients also report problems with memory or other thinking skills, muscle or joint pain, headache and other symptoms.

In 2009, a paper published in the journal Science connected the syndrome to infection with a mouse virus known as XMRV, for xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus.

In 2010, another study found a virus, polytropic murine leukemia virus, called pMLV, in some patients, which lent more support to a viral theory.

However, editors at Science later retracted the 2009 report, saying follow-up findings failed to confirm the original findings.

Source