{"id":299408,"date":"2025-10-13T08:01:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T08:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/299408\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T08:01:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T08:01:15","slug":"new-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-blood-test-raises-hope-and-skepticism-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/299408\/","title":{"rendered":"New Chronic Fatigue Syndrome ‘Blood Test’ Raises Hope And Skepticism : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists have discovered a unique signature of chronic fatigue syndrome<\/a>, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis<\/a> (CFS\/ME), in the blood of patients with severe symptoms.<\/p>\n

Using no fewer than 200 blood biomarkers, researchers at the University of East Anglia and the biotech company, Oxford Biodynamics<\/a>, claim to have developed a test that can diagnose CFS\/ME with 96 percent accuracy.<\/p>\n

“This is a significant step forward,” says<\/a> molecular biologist Dmitry Pshezhetskiy from UEA.<\/p>\n

“We know that some patients report being ignored or even told that their illness is ‘all in their head’. For the first time, we have a simple blood test that can reliably identify ME\/CFS \u2013 potentially transforming how we diagnose and manage this complex disease.”<\/p>\n

Related: <\/b>A Chronic Fatigue Blood Test Looks Increasingly Promising, But It’s Still Early Days<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The findings raise hope for those seeking answers to their chronic pain, dizziness, and flu-like symptoms, but several independent experts and organizations remain wary of those numbers.<\/p>\n

Alastair Miller, a retired physician not involved in the study, says<\/a> that level of accuracy is “almost unheard of for this sort of test, so this is quite a remarkable claim.”<\/p>\n

“My worry is that it will prove to be yet another false dawn, launched with a huge amount of hype and will raise patients’ expectations unrealistically,” adds<\/a> Miller.<\/p>\n

\"MEME\/CFS symptoms. (ME Research UK<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Unlike prior investigations into blood tests for ME\/CFS, this new study relies on numerous biomarkers, not just one or two. Still, the “strong systemic<\/a>” signal found in severely affected patients was only ‘strong’ when compared against healthy controls.<\/p>\n

The study did not analyze the blood of those with moderate or mild CFS\/ME, or patients with other conditions that can cause similar symptoms.<\/p>\n

Those are both necessary steps to a proper diagnostic test.<\/p>\n

Applied statistician Kevin McConway, who was not involved in the study, explains<\/a> that “there’s no guarantee” as to how the test would work for people with other chronic illnesses, like cancers or autoimmune conditions.\"Astronaut<\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier this year, scientists reviewed<\/a> the current research on CFS\/ME blood biomarkers, concluded that while no practical test yet exists, emerging results show promise for future clinical use.<\/p>\n

When that day will come is unknown. For years now, scientists around the world have tested different approaches<\/a> to diagnosing CFS\/ME with varying levels of success.<\/p>\n

The recent research from UEA and Oxford Biodynamics relies on epigenetic changes<\/a>, which occur when our environment or behavior alters the way our genes are expressed.<\/p>\n

Using an existing platform called Episwitch\u00ae, the team tested epigenetic regulators in 47 patients with severe CFS\/ME and 61 healthy individuals of the same age.<\/p>\n

Using 200 of these markers, tests could correctly pick the person with CFS\/ME 96 percent of the time.<\/p>\n

EpiSwitch\u00ae has already been used to create clinical tests for prostate cancer<\/a>, using this same logic. But one of the reasons CFS\/ME is so difficult to diagnose is that its symptoms are highly variable in just about every way.<\/p>\n

Today, it’s unknown whether all patients are suffering from the same underlying cause or if a variety of causes are contributing to the same pathology.<\/p>\n

There are also numerous crossovers with other conditions.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> on the recent research, officials at the ME Association UK say that epigenetic profiling is “an important step forward in the search for a diagnostic blood test.”<\/p>\n

However, an effective diagnostic test should be highly sensitive and specific to that condition.<\/p>\n

“In this case, we therefore need to know whether the abnormality is consistently present in the very early stages of ME\/CFS as well as in people with longstanding disease who have mild or moderate ME\/CFS,” they say<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Consequently, further research needs to be carried out to properly validate and repeat these findings before concluding that we do now have a highly sensitive and specific diagnostic blood test for ME\/CFS.”<\/p>\n

The study was published in the Journal of Translational Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists have discovered a unique signature of chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS\/ME), in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":299409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[210,352,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-299408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-msft-content","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115365811660490852","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}