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Page 15
| Causes of CFS |
| It has been suspected for some time that chronic fatigue syndrome is caused by a virus, although this theory remains controversial. If true, the specific virus has not yet been discovered. However, the disease does have some characteristics of a virus. For example, it tends to linger on, it's difficult to identify and it causes excessive drowsiness as the body seeks sleep to regenerate the immune system. The same problem in pinpointing a virus is what hampered discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS; researchers did not know what to look for. So far, several families of virusesHIV, Epstein-Barr (responsible for mononucleosis), cytomegalovirus (source of herpes I and II and measles), intestinal and meningitishave been investigated to see if any may be related. |
| To pursue the viral theory, researchers tested people with CFS for antibodies to these viruses. This would indicate that they had encountered the disease in the past. It seems that a higher percentage of people with CFS have antibodies to Epstein-Barr, cytomegalovirus (HHV-6) and intestinal viruses than the general population. |
| This does not mean that these viruses are directly linked to CFS, especially considering most adults carry Epstein-Barr antibodies anyway. We can guess that people who get CFS are more susceptible to |
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