Brain test proves fatigue syndrome

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[CO-CURE] RES,NOT: Brain test proves fatigue syndrome

> Source: The Times (UK)

> Date: December 22, 2003

> Author: Oliver

> URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-940225,00.html

>

> Health news

>

>

> Brain test proves fatigue syndrome

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>

> Doctors believe that they may have found the first scientific evidence

> for chronic fatigue syndrome, which affects more than 150,000 people in

> Britain.

>

> A team of researchers at Hammersmith Hospital, London, scanned the brains

> of sufferers of CFS, which is also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis

> (ME) or 'yuppie flu', and found enlarged gaps in fatty acids that were

> not present in non-sufferers. They have been backed by similar findings

> in Scotland and Japan.

>

> They found that when sufferers were later treated with fish oil

> supplements the gaps in the brain closed and they started to feel better.

>

> CFS leaves patients with flu-like symptoms of physical and mental

> exhaustion which can last for years. Often people are so badly affected

> that they can be bed-ridden. So far there has been no medical

> explanation and some experts have claimed that the condition does not

> really exist.

>

> Researchers found that sufferers were low in a group of essential fatty

> acids, known as EPAs, high levels of which are found particularly in

> fish. Basant Puri, a neuro-psychiatrist at Hammersmith, said: 'It was

> these natural gaps that we found to be enlarged in people with CFS. We

> have found what appears to be a cause for CFS but we don't know why

> people get it.'

>

> Action for ME, which represents sufferers of the illness, said that the

> research was welcome but it believed that there may be several causes.

> , the charity's chief executive, said: 'All the evidence so

> far suggests that there is no single cause.'

>

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> © 2003 Times Newspapers Ltd.

>

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