New Virus linked to CFS

[Chronicfatiguetreatments]

This article just came out today. It talks about a retrovirus called XMRV found in 67% of CFS patients (3% of healthy people) by the whittermore peterson institute.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... retrovirus

pretty interesting, but i think we've been down this road before with epsein-barr and hhv6. So hopfeully this will lead them in some new directions

[Chronicfatiguetreatments]

also here's another link about it in science magazine
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/a ... siteid=sci

[Chronicfatiguetreatments]

also here's a faq at the Whittemore Peterson Institute about the XMRV virus
http://www.wpinstitute.org/xmrv/xmrv_qa.html

[KimberlyC]

Looks like its actually 95% of CFS patients tested had the retrovirus. I think this is an exciting breakthrough, and I hope they can come up with treatment from it.

[quote]Our initial research showed that 67% of the ME/CFS patient samples tested positive for XMRV. Further work has found that 95% tested positive. Work continues to understand how this virus works within neuro-immune diseases, but this discovery proves a significant correlation between this serious retrovirus and these diseases.[/quote]

[url]http://wpinstitute.org/xmrv/xmrv_qa.html[/url]

[Chronicfatiguetreatments]

http://cheneyclinic.com/a-retrovirus-ca ... to-cfs/538

here's a link talking about it at the cheney clinic. Yeah, I guess on a newer more refined lab test they are claiming 95% of people with cfs had the XMRV virus.
That kind of scares me a little because its a virus related to HIV. So it would be contageous in the same way. But im still pretty skeptical because in the past theyve thought CFS was caused by epstein-barr, hhv6, cytomegalovirus, mycoplasma, etc.
So basically if people take antiretroviral drugs and get better or don't, that should pretty much prove it. It seems like it wouldnt take long to see if those drugs helped or not.

[hgiertler]

I was wondering if there aren't any CFS sufferers with HIV who could then tell us if things improved for them or not after antiretroviral therapy.

In the absence of a reliable diagnostic marker for CFS, CFS symptoms of CFS/HIV people might have been attributed to HIV alone and nobody may have looked at CFS improvements.

I'd be sceptical about a single virus causing CFS. But exciting discovery anyway.

Does anyone know how toxic/harmful antiretroviral therapy is?

[Chronicfatiguetreatments]

here's a link to a video about XMRV and transmission. I'm still not sure i buy it though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB12ydqe ... _embedded#

[Chronicfatiguetreatments]

heres a link to an article in the NY Times with an interview by Dr. Nancy Klimas. Discusses latest research and XMRV virus

http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/ ... -syndrome/

[Chronicfatiguetreatments]

Dr. Daniel Peterson (of the Whittemore Peterson Institute) is going to speak at the US Government Dept of Health & Human Services in 2 weeks. Looks like they are actually taking this virus seriously. This will probably lead to some real research.

http://www.hhs.gov/advcomcfs/meetings/a ... genda.html

[rdm]

Wow I'm really excited about this news and I think most other people on here should be too. This is the biggest breakthrough we heard in years. If this all works out we're looking at MAYBE a cure!! Or at least getting some serious research. Very very good news.. Come on people time to start being optimistic here.

[static]

I agree that this is huge news. It's very different form other, vague, tentative explanations that have been suggested for CFS. Assuming the results can be confirmed by other experiments -- and there's no reason right now to think that they won't -- this is a very significant breakthrough. I'm surprised by the lack of interest on the forum (and on another forum, where there were no responses at all).

[grace]

I am very excited about the discovery of the xmrv, and the more I read about it , the more convinced I get about it being if not the final piece of the puzzle, at least a very important part of it, especially because now the medical and research communities can no longer ignore us.

[Jj85]

The reason that there hasn't been too much excitement, I'm guessing, is that showing that there's some correlation between CFS and a physical marker isn't to say that the physical marker is the continuing cause of the illness. I don't doubt that it might be true that xmrv is an initial cause. But this would do nothing, as far as I can tell, to refute Gupta's hypothesis.

The fact is, there's a reason that some people have the virus and don't feel any symptoms. There's a reason that some of us, like myself, have it much worse at some times than at others. And there's a reason that Gupta's program is effective for a lot of people. I'll be very excited if it turns out that by taking some cocktail, we can all keep the virus weak enough to go on and have completely healthy lives. But I guess I'm very cautious in my optimism. It's great that the discovery is lending more legitimacy to CFS-- and maybe that is what really matters anyway-- but I suppose that I still think, when looking at what's helped me improve and what's led to my relapses, that some bad switch went off in our brains, and we're stuck in a vicious circle (which we can get out of) that has nothing to do with the virus anymore.

[Chronicfatiguetreatments]

it is great that they are doing new research and will probably get more funding because of this.
But, there's on thing that kind of bugs me about this. The virus is a retrovirus and can be transmitted to people similarly to HIV. So, i don't understand how people with CFS don't give the disease to their husbands/wives/or sexual partners. If they are claiming 95% infection in CFS (with their newer test, 65% with the old) and only 3% in healthy population, then this virus would almost have to be a direct cause.
I have heard of very isolated cases of a whole family getting CFS, or a husband. But those both had to do with mycoplasma infection.

But the good thing is that the CDC is interested in it now, so maybe they will finally do something

[static]

I agree that XMRV seems like it would have to be a direct cause of CFS when it's found in nearly all patients with CFS, and the researchers themselves have said as much. Of course, it's too early to tell, so I'm cautious about drawing that conclusion.

I'm not as troubled as you are by the fact that it doesn't seem to be as contagious as HIV. It seems to me it could be just that: that it's not as contagious. (Even with HIV, there has to be a certain amount of viral load present in order to transmit the virus.) Or it could be that other as-yet-unknown conditions need to be present in the body in order for the virus to take hold.

I don't think this finding invalidates any treatments that have worked for some people, as those treatments could simply be treating some of the effects of the retrovirus.

Personally, I haven't had any improvement or relapses. I've had CFS for over 25 years and it has gradually gotten worse over the years.