Prostate Cancer Virus May Cause Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
A virus recently linked to prostate cancer is a new suspect in chronic fatigue syndrome. Scientists tested blood from 101 patients and found two-thirds carried it.Researchers found the virus, known as XMRV, in the blood of 68 out of 101 chronic fatigue syndrome patients. The same virus showed up in only 8 of 218 healthy people, they reported in the journal Science.But lead scientist Judy Mikovits from the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Nevada, said further blood tests revealed 95 per cent of the ME patients had antibodies to the virus. This indicated they had been infected with XMRV.
“Is XMRV infection a causal factor or a passenger virus in the immunosuppressed chronic fatigue syndrome patient population?” wrote the study authors, led by Vincent Lombardi of the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease in Reno, Nevada, and Francis Ruscetti, a National Cancer Institute scientist in Frederick, Maryland.The researchers said they analyzed the genes in samples of tissue collected from 101 patients with chronic fatigue, and found evidence of the virus in 68. The scientists conducted the research after the virus was found in some patients with prostate cancer.The fact that blood from some healthy people also tested positive for XMRV “suggests that several million Americans may be infected” with a virus whose ability to cause disease is unknown, the scientists wrote.
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd makes a cancer drug called Velcade that is a proteasome inhibitor, although there are no reports that it has been tested against XMRV.CFS impairs the immune system and causes incapacitating fatigue, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sufferers can also experience memory loss, problems with concentration, joint and muscle pain, headaches, tender lymph nodes and sore throats.
But Mikovits said there is currently no treatment for CFS aside from cognitive behavioral therapy to help patients cope with the disorder’s crippling effects.The XMRV virus is a retrovirus, like the HIV virus that causes AIDS. As with all viruses, a retrovirus copies its genetic code into the DNA of its host but uses RNA — a working form of DNA — instead of using DNA to do so.Mikovits’ team said further research must now determine whether XMRV directly causes CFS, is just a passenger virus in the suppressed immune systems of sufferers or a pathogen that acts in concert with other viruses that have been implicated in the disorder by previous research.
"Conceivably these viruses could be co-factors in pathogenesis, as is the case for HIV-mediated disease, where co-infecting pathogens play an important role," the report said.
