Recent research has found that there are specific patterns in 51 immune biomarkers in patients with ME, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, or simply ME/CFS. Following what may likely turn out to be a 'game changing' study, scientists are already predicting a blood test and possible treatments for the disabling condition may now not be far away.
The large study carried out at Columbia University by a team including leading chronic fatigue syndrome researcher Professor Ian Lipkin provides ‘the first robust physical evidence’ that ME/CFS is a biological illness rather than a psychological disorder.
Prof. Lipkin said of the research: “This study delivers what has eluded us for so long: unequivocal evidence of immunological dysfunction in ME/CFS and diagnostic biomarkers for disease.”
The results are the first to come out of a larger study, the biggest in ME/CFS research history in fact with the involvement of the biggest names in the field involved. Prof. Lipkin and colleague Dr. Mady Hornig were actually hard at work seeking any possible pathogen: viral, bacterial, fungal or parasitic, to see if a chronic infection could explain ME/CFS. Instead, they found what amounts to an 'immune system fingerprint' seen only in chronic fatigue syndrome patients.
