Date sent:      	Mon, 5 Nov 2001 

Cytokine Overproduction May Be Key to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome


BETHESDA, MD (Reuters Health) Oct 25 - Overproduction of cytokines appears to be a
cause of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), according to a panel of experts on the
disease that convened here on Monday and Tuesday.

"There are a number of paradigms in which either viral infections or cytokine
administration cause changes which appear to trigger some of the manifestations of
CFS," the panel said in its draft consensus statement, which was released Wednesday.
"It seems plausible that the overproduction of some pro-inflammatory cytokines
contributes to the fatigue."

The panel was sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the
National Institutes of Health, and the Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction
Syndrome Association of America.

Dr. Roberto Patarca-Montero, co-director of the E. M. Papper Laboratory of Clinical
Immunology at the University of Miami School of Medicine, told Reuters Health that a
high cytokine level can be an excellent marker for an immunological problem such as
CFS. However, the research community is still divided on which cytokines to measure
and how to measure them, added Dr. Patarca-Montero, who is not a panel member.

"Some people say the best one to measure is interleukin-6, while some say it's
interleukin-1. As to the method, you can either make your own assay in the lab or
purchase a commercially available kit, and not all kits are the same."

What triggers cytokines to start sending messages that the body's immune system needs
to get to work is another question still being looked at, said panel co-chair Dr.
Dimitris A. Papanicolaou, assistant professor of endocrinology at Emory University in
Atlanta. "We know that cytokines cause many CFS symptoms, but how do they get
activated? We don't know."

In one intriguing development, researchers at Emory University found that many
hepatitis and melanoma patients who were given large doses of interferon-alpha to
help cure their disease ended up developing symptoms similar to CFS, including fever,
sore throat, and fatigue. That research could prove to be a model for testing
possible cures for CFS, Dr. Papanicolaou said.

Interleukin-6 is found mostly in the body's fat cells, he pointed out. Although most
research on CFS to date has not focused on the number of obese patients in each
study, future studies will look more closely at this particular factor, he said.

Dr. Papanicolaou added that he is hopeful that more information about the causes of
CFS will be available in 2 or 3 years, when a large epidemiological study of CFS
patients will be finished. That study is being sponsored by the CDC.

Copyright © 2001 Reuters Ltd.