Advances in ME/CFS Research and Clinical Care: Part II

A special issue of Medicina (ISSN 1648-9144). This special issue belongs to the section "Epidemiology & Public Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2024) | Viewed by 39964

Special Issue Editors


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Department of General Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-5-1 Shikata-cho, Kitaku, Okayama 700-8558, Japan
Interests: medical education; empathy; general medicine
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Guest Editor
Department of General Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, Okayama 700-8558, Japan
Interests: adrenal diseases; endocrine disorders; laboratory medicine; long COVID; pituitary diseases; steroid hormones; thyroid diseases
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Guest Editor
1. School of Medicine, Metabolism, Endocrinology and Molecular Medicine, Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan
2. Graduate School of Medicine, Division of Health Sciences, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
Interests: myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is our pleasure to invite you to contribute to this Special Issue entitled “Advances in ME/CFS Research and Clinical Care: Part II”. This is a second volume, having published eight papers in the first volume that were viewed 60,930 times. For more details, please visit https://www.mdpi.com/journal/medicina/special_issues/ME_AND_CFS.

Recently, there has been a greater focus on myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). However, the blood and urine tests and imaging tests currently used in daily practice do not show any clear abnormal findings. In addition, the fact that the disease is named after a symptom that everyone experiences, “fatigue”, leads to underestimation and lack of understanding, as the disease is misconstrued as “laziness under the pretext of fatigue when there is no particular abnormality”. On the other hand, several patients who contracted COVID-19 have sequelae known as “long COVID”. There are many reports that suggest the similarity of ME/CFS to long COVID. However, we do not fully understand the relationship between these conditions. Thus, in this Special Issue, we hope to increase our understanding of ME/CFS and epidemiologic and clinical facts about long COVID.

We are aiming to solicit papers on the topics of epidemiologic and clinical facts about long COVID, diagnosis of ME/CFS in patients who have long COVID, and treatment and management of ME/CFS and long COVID.

Prof. Dr. Hitomi Kataoka
Prof. Dr. Fumio Otsuka
Prof. Dr. Hirohiko Kuratsune
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • ME/CFS
  • long COVID
  • myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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9 pages, 579 KiB  
Article
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Impact on Quality of Life (QoL) of Persons with ME/CFS
by Nina L. Muirhead, Jui Vyas, Rachel Ephgrave, Ravinder Singh and Andrew Y. Finlay
Medicina 2024, 60(8), 1215; https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina60081215 - 27 Jul 2024
Viewed by 5081
Abstract
Background and Objectives: We previously reported on the impact of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) on the QoL of persons with ME/CFS and their family members. Here, we present the findings of the impact on the QoL of individuals with ME/CFS whose [...] Read more.
Background and Objectives: We previously reported on the impact of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) on the QoL of persons with ME/CFS and their family members. Here, we present the findings of the impact on the QoL of individuals with ME/CFS whose family members did not participate in the survey. Materials and Methods: A prospective multinational online survey was disseminated via patient charities, support groups and social media. Persons with ME/CFS completed the EuroQoL questionnaire (EQ-5D-3L). Results: Data were analysed from 876 participants from 26 countries who reported a health care professional diagnosis of ME/CFS. In total, 742 participants identified as female, 124 male and 10 preferred not to say. The mean age of the participants was 47 years (range 18–82), and the mean time to diagnosis was 14 years. The mean overall health status on a visual analogue scale for people with ME/CFS was 36.4 (100 = best health). People with ME/CFS were most often affected by inability to perform usual activities (n = 852, 97%), followed by pain (n = 809, 92%), impaired mobility (n = 724, 83%), difficulty in self-care (n = 561, 64%) and least often affected by anxiety and depression (n = 540, 62%). Conclusions: The QoL of people with ME/CFS is significantly affected globally. There was no significant difference in quality of life compared with previously published data on those with ME/CFS who did have a family member complete the family member quality of life questionnaire (FROM16). Contrary to popular misconception, anxiety and depression are the least often affected areas in persons with ME/CFS who are most impacted by their inability to perform usual activities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in ME/CFS Research and Clinical Care: Part II)
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13 pages, 1715 KiB  
Hypothesis
Microvascular Capillary and Precapillary Cardiovascular Disturbances Strongly Interact to Severely Affect Tissue Perfusion and Mitochondrial Function in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Evolving from the Post COVID-19 Syndrome
by Klaus Josef Wirth and Matthias Löhn
Medicina 2024, 60(2), 194; https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina60020194 - 23 Jan 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3427
Abstract
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a frequent, debilitating and still enigmatic disease. There is a broad overlap in the symptomatology of ME/CFS and the Post-COVID-19 Syndrome (PCS). A fraction of the PCS patients develop the full clinical picture of ME/CFS. New observations [...] Read more.
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a frequent, debilitating and still enigmatic disease. There is a broad overlap in the symptomatology of ME/CFS and the Post-COVID-19 Syndrome (PCS). A fraction of the PCS patients develop the full clinical picture of ME/CFS. New observations in microvessels and blood from patients suffering from PCS have appeared and include microclots and malformed pathological blood cells. Capillary blood flow is impaired not only by pathological blood components but also by prothrombotic changes in the vascular wall, endothelial dysfunction, and the expression of adhesion molecules in the capillaries. These disturbances can finally cause a low capillary flow and even capillary stasis. A low cardiac stroke volume due to hypovolemia and the inability of the capacitance vessels to adequately constrict to deliver the necessary cardiac preload generate an unfavorable low precapillary perfusion pressure. Furthermore, a predominance of vasoconstrictor over vasodilator influences exists, in which sympathetic hyperactivity and endothelial dysfunction play a strong role, causing the constriction of resistance vessels and of precapillary sphincters, which leads to a fall in capillary pressure behind the sphincters. The interaction of these two precapillary cardiovascular mechanisms causing a low capillary perfusion pressure is hemodynamically highly unfavorable in the presence of a primary capillary stasis, which is already caused by the pathological blood components and their interaction with the capillary wall, to severely impair organ perfusion. The detrimental coincidence of microcirculatory and precapillary cardiovascular disturbances may constitute the key disturbance of the Post-COVID-19 syndrome and finally lead to ME/CFS in predisposed patients because the interaction causes a particular kind of perfusion disturbance—capillary ischemia/reperfusion—which has a high potential of causing mitochondrial dysfunction by inducing sodium- and calcium-overload in skeletal muscles. The latter, in turn, worsens the vascular situation through the generation of reactive oxygen species to close a vicious cycle from which the patient can hardly escape. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in ME/CFS Research and Clinical Care: Part II)
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10 pages, 324 KiB  
Opinion
Why the Psychosomatic View on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is Inconsistent with Current Evidence and Harmful to Patients
by Manuel Thoma, Laura Froehlich, Daniel B. R. Hattesohl, Sonja Quante, Leonard A. Jason and Carmen Scheibenbogen
Medicina 2024, 60(1), 83; https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina60010083 - 31 Dec 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 30837
Abstract
Since 1969, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) has been classified as a neurological disease in the International Classification of Diseases by the World Health Organization. Although numerous studies over time have uncovered organic abnormalities in patients with ME/CFS, and the majority of researchers [...] Read more.
Since 1969, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) has been classified as a neurological disease in the International Classification of Diseases by the World Health Organization. Although numerous studies over time have uncovered organic abnormalities in patients with ME/CFS, and the majority of researchers to date classify the disease as organic, many physicians still believe that ME/CFS is a psychosomatic illness. In this article, we show how detrimental this belief is to the care and well-being of affected patients and, as a consequence, how important the education of physicians and the public is to stop misdiagnosis, mistreatment, and stigmatization on the grounds of incorrect psychosomatic attributions about the etiology and clinical course of ME/CFS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in ME/CFS Research and Clinical Care: Part II)
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