{"id":38390,"date":"2023-02-16T21:03:23","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T21:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/?p=38390"},"modified":"2023-02-16T21:03:23","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T21:03:23","slug":"research-different-risk-factors-distinguish-me-cfs-from-severe-fatigue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/research-different-risk-factors-distinguish-me-cfs-from-severe-fatigue\/","title":{"rendered":"Research: Different risk factors distinguish ME\/CFS from severe fatigue"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>Severe Fatigue is not the same as ME\/CFS<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-38453 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/nurse-tired-scaled-e1676581150640-300x300.jpg?resize=250%2C250&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/nurse-tired.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/nurse-tired.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/nurse-tired.jpg?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 250px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 250\/250;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>US researchers led by Prof Komaroff found that severe fatigue was much more common than ME\/CFS in a large group of nurses and the triggers were different. There was an increased risk of ME\/CFS in people with a history of mononucleosis (or glandular fever).<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Research abstract:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Fatigue is a common reason that patients seek medical care. Only a fraction of these patients meet criteria for myalgic encephalomyelitis\/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME\/CFS).<\/p>\n<p>To determine if ME\/CFS is just a more extreme form of fatigue, or a qualitatively different condition, we assessed whether risk factors for ME\/CFS and for Severe Fatigue were similar. An email questionnaire that inquired about symptoms of Severe Fatigue and ME\/CFS was completed by <strong>41,802<\/strong> US female nurses from whom detailed medical and lifestyle information had been collected since 1989.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>102 met criteria for ME\/CFS<\/li>\n<li>522 had Severe Fatigue<\/li>\n<li>41,178 individuals were without significant chronic fatigue.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We used <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statsdirect.co.uk\/help\/survival_analysis\/cox_regression.htm#:~:text=Cox%20regression%20(or%20proportional%20hazards,Cox%20regression%20for%20survival%20analysis.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cox proportional hazards regression<\/a> to estimate the Hazard Ratio (HR) of Severe Fatigue and of ME\/CFS with each of several potential risk factors, according to the level of exposure to each risk factor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The risk of Severe Fatigue<\/strong> was significantly increased among<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>participants who were older,<\/li>\n<li>had a higher BMI in adulthood,<\/li>\n<li>used hormone therapy,<\/li>\n<li>had increased alcohol intake<\/li>\n<li>and decreased caffeine intake.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In contrast, these risk factor associations were not seen in people with ME\/CFS. A self-reported past history of <strong>acute infectious mononucleosis<\/strong> was associated with a non-significantly increased Hazard Ratio of later ME\/CFS (HR 1.77, 0.87\u20133.61) and, to a lesser extent, of Severe Fatigue (HR 1.28, 0.98\u20131.66).<\/p>\n<p>The different contribution of various risk factors to Severe Fatigue and ME\/CFS suggests that ME\/CFS has a qualitatively different underlying biology from the more common state of Severe Fatigue.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-023-29329-x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Different risk factors distinguish myalgic encephalomyelitis\/ chronic fatigue syndrome from severe fatigue<\/a>, by\u00a0Natalia Palacios, Samantha Molsberry, Kathryn C Fitzgerald &amp; Anthony L Komaroff <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">in\u00a0<\/span><em>Scientific Reports<\/em> vol 13, no.: 2469 (2023)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Image by freepik.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Severe Fatigue is not the same as ME\/CFS &nbsp; US researchers led by Prof Komaroff found that severe fatigue was much more common than ME\/CFS in a large group of nurses and the triggers were different. There was an increased &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/research-different-risk-factors-distinguish-me-cfs-from-severe-fatigue\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3776,3775,801,5366,7463,7464],"class_list":["post-38390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-kathryn-c-fitzgerald","tag-natalia-palacios","tag-prof-anthony-komaroff","tag-risk-factors","tag-samantha-molsberry","tag-severe-fatigue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5qkYK-9Zc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38390"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38454,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38390\/revisions\/38454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}