XMRV & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: What Can Retroviruses Do?

January 31, 2010

XMRV & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: What Can Retroviruses Do?

Filed under: Fibromyalgia — Admin @ 2:20 am

The discovery of XMRV in 68% of people with chronic fatigue syndrome has raised questions for which we likely won’t have answers for a long time. In the meantime, however, scientists do know certain things about XMRV and retroviruses in general.

Recently, Dr. Lucina Bateman and the CFIDS Association put on a webinar called “XMRV: Implications for CFS.” It was a good review of what we’ve learned about XMRV and also had some great information about retroviruses. What really caught my attention was the portion about what retroviruses can do to the human body.

According to Dr. Bateman, retroviruses are known to cause a variety of blood-borne and neurological diseases, which certainly fits with the prevailing (non-psychosocial) model of chronic fatigue syndrome, and also fibromyalgia. Dr. Bateman listed symptoms that retroviruses can cause. This list comes directly from her slides, and many of them probably look familiar to you:

Weakness
Wasting
Ataxia (imbalanced gait or walk)
Arthritis
Dementia
Neuropathy (damage to nerves)

She also talked about how any condition that involves dysfunction, modulation or suppression of the immune system can change how our bodies deal with the infectious agents that are around us every day, allowing typically harmless ones to become dangerous.

You can see why scientists started looking for a retrovirus — the more we learn, the more it seems likely.

Still, we do have to remember that XMRV research is in its preliminary stages and it’s too early to say whether it causes chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, or any other illness. We’ll need a lot more research to figure out its role, and even more before we know how to treat or prevent it (if needed).

To see all of Dr. Bateman’s presentation slides, follow this link: