Monday, June 17, 2013

Is Chronic Fatigue (myalic encephalomyelitis ) an autoimmune disease?

Hypothesis: An infection first produces an antibody response towards self  but autoimmunity does not develop until a virus infects the target too and causes cross-targeting.  The immune system is attacking self because 2 different infections push the system over the edge and only then does autoimmune disease develop.

In Chronic Fatigue the antibodies are directed toward serotonin and the 5-ht neurons.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23664637

The Borna disease virus is known to infect these neurons in animals which typically results in an induced up regulation of serotonin. I suspect this virus.

 Just found references showing BDV in patients:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9396313
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10529109
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8839433
http://www.hirou.jp/english/pdf/ikuta.pdf
https://scholars.duke.edu/display/pub703748

As for the initial infection: RA tends to overlap chronic fatigue.  My suspect for that is Mycoplasmas which could also infect nerves and it has been found in some Chronic fatigue patients.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12879275
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10691196
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1574-695X.2002.tb00626.x/abstract
http://www.cfids-cab.org/cfs-inform/Mycoplasma/endresen03.pdf

What could be happening here: the mycoplasmas infect the 5-HT neurons first generating the antibodies to develop then if the person is unlucky enough to then catch the Borna virus which infects these nerves....cross-targeting triggers the autoimmune disease.

Too early to say that this is happening because not enough research has been done. However based on the immune suppression drugs given to patients Chronic Fatigue syndrome does appear to be autoimmune.
http://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/01-are-b-cells-to-blame-for-chronic-fatigue-syndrome#.Ub_AzpwQMs3

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