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A simple blood test could provide the first reliable diagnosis for Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and put an end to the long process to try to identify the debilitating condition have found scientists.
It’s more than 400,000 people in the United Kingdom suffer with the condition, also known as Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).
Pain, brain fog and extreme low energy that do not improve with sleep are only some of the symptoms of me. There is no remedy and the cause is unknown.
Currently, the only way to diagnose it is to dispatch other diseases – a long process that may mean that patients expect years for diagnosis.
However, researchers University of Edinburgh believe that they had a breakthrough.
The study published in the Embo Journal Molecular medicine has used British biobank data – a large -scale resource based on health data and biological samples of 500,000 participants in the United Kingdom.
The researchers compared blood samples of 1,455 patients with more than 131,000 healthy people. They identified the differences in number of cells and molecules that differ in the concentrations between the two.
The differences in samples for patients were linked to me to chronic inflammation, resistance to insulin and hepatic dysfunction.
These results were compared and reproduced in the data of a group of American and healthy witnesses.
The researchers found 116 “biomarkers” for me in the blood of men and women with the condition. It is a key discovery because the condition affects men and women differently.
Professor Chris Ponting, of the University Genetics and Cancer Institute, said: “For so long, people with me / CFS were informed that everything was in their heads. This is not the case. We see [it] in their blood.
“The evidence of a large number of replicated and diverse blood biomarkers who make the difference between ME / CFS cases and controls should dispel any persistent perception that it is caused by deconditioning and intolerance to exercise.”
These biomarkers have not changed when participants were more active – in accordance with gradual exercise therapy, which aims to gradually increase activity levels, is unlikely to be useful.
In fact, the biggest differences were observed in people who reported post-exercise discomfort. This is when the symptoms of the disease get worse even after a minor physical effort.
Dr. Sjoerd Beentjes, from the University’s Mathematics School, said: “Blood differences are sometimes attributed to reduced activity levels rather than me / CFS directly. Our study provides solid evidence that Me / CFS affects blood lines by paths other than activity. ”
However, this research is still at an early stage and there is no guarantee that a test will be possible, according to the study authors.
Professor Kevin McConway, professor emeritus of applied statistics, Open University, who was not part of the study, said: “There is much more to do.”
“These results could help find a set of blood biomarkers who can reasonably distinguish people with me / CF from those who do not have this condition, but that, without much additional work, the results do not provide such a set of biomarkers in themselves,” he added.
