Chronic fatigue linked to virus

Chronic fatigue can literally "fall" on an individual previously healthy, often after infection. The person then complains of great physical weariness with notable joint pain, impaired memory and sleep.

This syndrome primarily affects young adults, especially females. For a long time, physicians are interested in its origins, mentioning several types of psychological, infectious, hormonic or environmental factors. The team of Vincent Lombardi, from the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno (Nevada), is perhaps discovering, identifying a link between the fatigue and a virus, rather a retrovirus called XMRV (which is related to virus murine leukemia).

In this study, the genome XMRV has been detected in certain white blood cells of 68 patients of the 101 analyzed (67%) and only 8 samples of 208 from healthy control subjects (3.7%). Antibodies against the virus were present in patients.

The virus is identical to more than 99% to that found in patients suffering from prostate cancer, and is present and active in both B cells in T lymphocytes In vitro tests in the laboratory, it could infect cells by transmission from cell to cell.

Despite this strong association, not all issues are resolved. "The XMRV is a causal factor in the pathogenesis of chronic fatigue syndrome or just a passenger virus, present in immunocompromised patients?" Ask the authors.

They also question the relationship between infection XMRV and the presence or absence of other viruses frequently associated with chronic fatigue, such as herpes. As for the way of transmission XMRV, it is still unknown. Despite all this, the discovery of this new track sounds very promising and could have important implications in terms of diagnosis, prevention and therapy of chronic fatigue syndrome.

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