New Treatment For Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 2020

How Is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Treated

Treatment is determined by your healthcare provider and based on:

• Your overall health and medical history
• Extent of the condition
• Your tolerance for specific medicines, procedures, or therapies
• Expectations for the course of the condition
• Your opinion or preference

• Medicine, including corticosteroids, antidepressants, and others
• Light-intensity aerobic exercise
• Dietary supplements and herbal preparations
• Psychotherapy and supportive counseling

Section Vii Agency Contacts

We encourage inquiries concerning this funding opportunity and welcome the opportunity to answer questions from potential applicants.

eRA Service Desk

Finding Help Online: Telephone: 301-402-7469 or 866-504-9552

General Grants Information Email: Telephone: 301-945-7573

E-mail:

Recommended Reading: Joint Pain Swelling Stiffness Fatigue

New Hope For Those With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

As many as four million Americans are thought to suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, a disease characterized by symptoms that include persistent lethargy, headaches, muscle pain, mental fogginess, and sleep problems but the illness, once dismissed as the yuppie flu, has long frustrated scientists seeking to explain its etiology. To date, there has been no cure or treatment protocol, or even a way to test for the syndrome, but now a breakthrough by a team of scientists led by Columbia epidemiologist Mady Hornig may provide clinicians with a way to diagnose and treat chronic fatigue in its early stages.

In a study comparing blood samples from hundreds of people with chronic fatigue syndrome to those from healthy counterparts, the scientists found differences that support a popular hypothesis about the syndromes cause: that it occurs when the immune system, in the course of fighting off an acute infection, gets stuck in high gear and eventually wears itself out. The evidence? People in the early stages of chronic fatigue syndrome have elevated levels of immune-system messenger chemicals called cytokines, which indicate an active immunological response, while those who have been ill for three years or longer have unusually low levels of these cytokines.

Related Stories

Read Also: Gelpro Elite Premium Comfort Anti-fatigue Floor Mat

Mild Pain Relievers And Nsaids

CFS/ME patients may benefit from NSAIDs, which are commonly used to relieve pain and reduce inflammation. In this context, the NSAIDs include ibuprofen and naproxen. They sometimes relieve frequent or severe joint and muscle pain, headaches, and fevers .

Other prescription medicines include anticonvulsants, also called antiseizure medicines. These drugs are sometimes prescribed for pain and sleep problems. They seem to work best when used for nerve pain. Antidepressant medicine is also prescribed to ease depression and anxiety, to enhance the ability to concentrate and to improve sleep quality . For their part, narcotic medicines are sometimes prescribed for pain that is not relieved by overthecounter drugs. Narcotics are generally reserved for the most severe cases because of the risk of addiction, and are used only for a short time .

Dont Miss: Clarins Anti Fatigue Eye Serum

Section Ii Award Information

Cooperative Agreement: A support mechanism used when there will be substantial Federal scientific or programmatic involvement. Substantial involvement means that, after award, NIH scientific or program staff will assist, guide, coordinate, or participate in project activities. See Section VI.2 for additional information about the substantial involvement for this FOA.

The OER Glossary and the SF424 Application Guide provide details on these application types. Only those application types listed here are allowed for this FOA.

Required: Basic Experimental Studies with Humans: Only accepting applications that propose clinical trial that also meet the definition of basic research.

RFA with multiple ICs/components :

The following NIH components intend to commit the following amounts in FY :

NINDS will commit $3,250,000 total costs per year over 5 years to support components that align with the mission of the Institute.

NIAID will commit $2,750,000 total costs per year over 5 years to support components that align with the mission of the Institute.

NHLBI will commit $500,000 total costs per year over 5 years to support components that align with the mission of the Institute.

NCCIH will commit $350,000 total costs per year over 5 years to support the components that align with complementary and integration health interests

NIAAA will commit $250,000 total costs per year over 5 years to support the components that align with the mission of the Institute.

Also Check: Best Protein Powder For Adrenal Fatigue

Pharmacological Treatment And Supplements

Pharmacological treatments have been shown to decrease rates of common CFS symptoms such as chronic fatigue, depression, and anxiety, while improving quality of life and physical performance variables . Proper supplementation of nutrients such as Vitamin B12, Folic Acid, Supradyn , NADH+ coenzyme Q, and D-ribose are safe treatment options . Replacing deficient lipid content and using antioxidant therapy have shown efficacy in patients who present with moderate to severe CFS symptoms .

The monoclonal antibody Rituximab, which is used for autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, showed no difference in comparison of effectiveness to controls when examining fatigue and functional status in CFS patients . Rintatolimod, a double stranded RNA compound, operates as an activating ligand for Toll-Like Receptor 3 in the innate immune system and provides relief of symptoms in 30 – 40% of CFS/ME patients . Urits et al. describe the importance of understanding what the cause of the fatigue, such as hypomagnesemia so that it may be treated appropriately with magnesium supplementation .

The Cortene Way: New Drug To Be Trialed In Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Me/cfs Soon

by Cort Johnson | Feb 8, 2018 | Brain, Cortene, Homepage, HPA axis, Treatment |

Research funding for chronic fatigue syndrome has been poor at best but clinical trials have elicited a wholly different degree of disappointment altogether. Few clinical trials are ever done and those often involve alternative approaches. The six active clinical trials listed in clinicaltrials.gov, for instance, include treatments like acupuncture, moxibustion, oral rehydration and CoQ10.

That makes it shocking to see a new drug a drug not being used in other diseases get a clinical trial in ME/CFS. It wasnt supposed to happen this way. First, its been assumed that repurposed drugs drugs already in use in other disease would be tested in ME/CFS to improve symptoms and only later, as we understood the disease better, would we get to a drug that gets at the core problems in ME/CFS. This group believes they have a drug that gets at the core of ME/CFS now, and in the first quarter of this year they expect to test that drug.

Over the next month, Health Rising will be publishing a 3 or 4-part blog series telling the story of the small group of researchers that are bringing a drug to ME/CFS they believe could get at the core of this disease.

Rather shockingly, a new drug a drug not being used in any other disease will soon be tested in ME/CFS.

• Part I Beginnings and the Hypothesis
• Part II The Hypothesis Pt. II
• Part III Treating ME/CFS and the Clinical Trial

Don’t Miss: Chest Pain Headache Dizziness Fatigue

New Treatment For Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 2020

Two RCTs were conducted to assess the synergistic effects of 4 different interventions +CBT). Reid S, Chalder T, Cleare A, Hotopf M, Wessely SBMJ.

PubMed The main symptom of CFS is extreme and often unrelenting fatigue Pinxsterhuis I, Sandvik L, Strand EB, Bautz-Holter E, Sveen U. Accordingly, to explore the pathophysiology of CFS/ME, new systematic research strategies are essential for developing fundamental treatments, especially for pharmaceutical interventions, although most drug-based RCTs have failed so far. Clin Ther. Behind chronic fatigue syndrome’s benign name is an illness that can ruin the lives of once healthy people, leaving them in a near-permanent state of exhaustion and sometimes unable to work, think clearly or care for themselves.

Weaver SA, Janal MN, Aktan N, Ottenweller JE, Natelson BH. The information on Health24 is for educational purposes only, and is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Nobody believes how incapacitated we can become or the range and severity of symptoms triggered by exceeding the energy envelope. The findings might help design future treatments. Low-dose hydrocortisone for treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome: a randomized controlled trial. Multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment versus cognitive behavioural therapy for patients with chronic fatigue syndrome: a randomized controlled trial.

Addressing Low Thyroid Hormone Function

In Prolonged Critical Illness

As described above , clinicians began, as early as the 1970s, to suggest thyroid hormone supplementation for critically ill patients. The rationale was to correct what some considered a maladaptive hypo-metabolic state which was preventing recovery following severe infection or injury . Again, this approach remains controversial . Interestingly, there has been little research into pharmacological agents to correct the peripheral mechanisms, which to a large extent underpin the low thyroid hormone function during critical illness: i.e., the alterations in cellular thyroid hormone transporters, receptors, and deiodinases that convert thyroid hormones into their active and inactivated forms. Targeting these deiodinases could theoretically be an avenue for alleviating low thyroid hormone function during prolonged critical illness .

In ME/CFS

As described above, there are accounts of positive effects of thyroid hormone supplementation to address low thyroid hormone function in euthyroid ME/CFS and fibromyalgia . Proponents generally believe that thyroid hormone supplementation serves to compensate for dysfunctions in the conversion of thyroid hormones and/or uptake at cellular level , notably associated with inflammation in ME/CFS or fibromyalgia .

Read Also: Living With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Pragmatic Rehabilitation: The Fine Trial

Pragmatic rehabilitation is a programme involving gradually increasing activity designed collaboratively by the patient and the therapist. In response to an earlier successful trial, a larger trial was conducted. In this trial, patients fulfilling 1991 Oxford CFS criteria who were allocated to pragmatic rehabilitation reported a statistically significant though clinically modest improvement in fatigue compared with patients allocated to either supportive listening or treatment as usual, but after 12 months followup the differences were no longer statistically significant nor was there was any significant improvement in physical functioning at any time. About 10% of the trial participants were nonambulatory and about 30% met 1994 London criteria for ME, but separate results for these groups were not published . An accompanying editorial gave some possible reasons for the failure to replicate the earlier success in this trial, and called for further research. The patients in this trial had higher comorbidity and disability than patients in the earlier trial and in most other trials, and received fewer sessions than most successful trials of CBT and GET. The editorial also raised the question of whether generalists are as successful as specialists in offering behavioural interventions .

Compensation For And Correction Of Suppressed Endocrine Axes

Researchers have tried to correct suppressed endocrine axes in prolonged critically ill patients with the hope of reducing muscle wasting and mortality, and to aid recovery. The treatment trials can be grouped into two main approaches: treatments with non-tropic peripheral hormones, and the reactivation of the central endocrine glands. Whereas, the first approach compensates for suppressed endocrine axes by providing down-stream hormones into circulation, the second approach attempts to correct the endocrine axes themselves through interventions at the central level. We briefly summarize various treatment trials for each of these two broad approaches below. For each approach we also relate similar experimental treatment trials for ME/CFS and fibromyalgia in order to highlight the similarities in the quests to cure the two conditions, and to derive lessons for solving ME/CFS.

Don’t Miss: How To Treat Fatigue After Dialysis

Approach A: Treatments With Peripheral Hormones

The use of peripheral hormonesnotably glucocorticoids and other adrenal hormones, growth hormone , insulin-like growth hormone-1 , thyroid hormones, and a combination of these hormoneshave been trialed to improve outcomes in prolonged critical illness as well as in ME/CFS and fibromyalgia with varied successes as described below.

Treatments With Glucocorticoids and Other Adrenal Hormones

In Prolonged Critical Illness

Administration of large daily doses of hydrocortisone in patients during critical illness is quite common, particularly in sepsis or when cortisol levels are deemed low relative to the severity of the illness. The aim is to treat critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency which is thought to lead to an exaggerated proinflammatory response with increased tissue injury and organ dysfunction . Some researchers, however, have recently argued that such high doses of hydrocortisone may be counterproductive because they drive the inhibitory feedback loop inherent to endocrine axes, resulting in further central suppression of the axes . Moreover, large hydrocortisone doses heighten catabolic effects , especially if administered for too long .

In ME/CFS

Treatments With GH and IGF-1

In Prolonged Critical Illness

In ME/CFS

Treatments With Thyroid Hormones

In Prolonged Critical Illness

In ME/CFS

Treatments With Peripheral Hormone Combinations

In Prolonged Critical Illness

In ME/CFS

Related: The Medical Community Is Changing Its Mind On Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Why Arent Insurers

A significant number of people diagnosed with Covid-19 report disabling symptoms that persist for months after they have cleared the virus that causes it. As Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has observed, symptoms experienced by post-Covid-19 patients are highly suggestive of those associated with ME/CFS. And like ME/CFS patients before them, many of these Covid-19 long-haulers report that health care providers have been similarly dismissive, automatically attributing their symptoms to stress, depression, and deconditioning, and recommending psychotherapy and exercise.

Medicine can be both wondrously innovative and stubbornly resistant to change. In 1847, the Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis could not convince his fellow doctors in Vienna to wash their hands before delivering babies as a way to prevent often fatal cases of puerperal fever in new mothers. It would be another 30 years before Joseph Lister gained widespread acceptance for his approach to sterilization and aseptic surgery.

Things are better these days, with an average time lag of only 17 years before research evidence reaches clinical practice. The British psychiatrists and others still pushing graded exercise therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy for ME/CFS have done their part to keep the median delay as high as it is.

Read Also: Anti Fatigue Mat Under Rug

Living With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Although experts have not yet found a cure for CFS/ME, many people who have the illness are able to make lifestyle changes and find treatments that allow them to reduce or manage their symptoms. Improvement is possible by living within your limits and working with a doctor to find treatments that help you. There are also many CFS/ME support groups both online and in-person. Meeting with such a group might prove to be helpful.

• Was this article helpful?

You may have sleep problems that make your ME/CFS symptoms worse. For example, you may:

• have problems getting to sleep
• have unrefreshing or restless sleep
• need an excessive amount of sleep
• sleep during the day and be awake at night

You should be given advice about how to establish a normal sleeping pattern. Having too much sleep does not usually improve the symptoms of ME/CFS, and sleeping during the day can stop you sleeping at night.

You should change your sleep pattern gradually, and your doctor should review how its going regularly. If your sleep does not improve after making changes, you may have an underlying sleep problem that will need to be addressed.

Its likely youll need to rest during the day, and your doctor should advise you about the best way to do this. For example, they may suggest limiting each rest period to 30 minutes and teach you relaxation techniques, such as breathing exercises.

Aberrant Energy Production Via Increased Glycolysis In The Warburg Effect

Cells from persons with ME/CFS show aberrant energy production, wherein more energy is produced within the cytoplasm via increased glycolysis and fermentation . Oxaloacetate has been shown to reverse this trend in human cancer cells, reducing both glycolysis and the formation of lactate . The Warburg Effect refers to a form of modified cellular metabolism, which tend to use specialized fermentation of pyruvate to lactate in the cytoplasm over the aerobic respiration pathway that burns pyruvate in the mitochondria that is used by most cells in the body under non-pathological conditions. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients have been shown to have activated this alternative energy pathway, increasing the amount of energy that is produced by glycolysis in the cytosol that continues after their pathological incident has passed .

You May Like: Adrenal Fatigue Weight Loss Supplements

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Treatment

Treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome is variable and uncertain, and the condition is primarily managed rather than cured.

Only two treatments, cognitive behavioral therapy and graded exercise therapy , have demonstrated reproducible evidence for their efficacy in people with CFS who are walking. Based on evidence from multiple randomized clinical trials , a systematic review published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine stated that CBT and GET interventions showed promising results, appearing to reduce symptoms and improve function. The review stated that the evidence of effectiveness was inconclusive for most other interventions, with some reporting significant adverse effects. The wide variety of outcome measures used in CFS research was found to be a “fundamental problem” for assessing the effectiveness of interventions in general, and no intervention has proven to be effective in restoring the ability to work.

Even when treated, the prognosis of CFS is often poor. Recovery is “rare” even after a comprehensive rehabilitation programme.

Keep Track Of Your Symptoms And Their Onset

Tracking the frequency, timing, and severity of your symptoms might help your doctor better understand what youre experiencing. Tracking your activity level and symptoms can also help you draw connections and learn your limits so that you can reduce flare-ups.

When tracking your symptoms, remember to write down everything ailing you, not just fatigue. People with CFS/ME often also have issues with pain, cognition, such as memory and concentration, and sleep. You might also consider keeping a sleep diary, so your doctor can see how well youre sleeping and determine if sleep might play a role in your symptoms.

Don’t Miss: Slip Resistant Anti Fatigue Mats