Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a complicated and sometimes mysterious illness. Medical research studies have been ongoing for many years in attempts to find a definitive cause for the illness. Medical groups studying CFS have instead found a number of aspects of the syndrome that are clearly present but each may play a role or be one of the many factors of CFS rather than its definitive cause.
Post Viral Illness
A number of viruses studied in relation to CFS have been found to be present in significant titers (lab result measurements) in people suffering the syndrome. Among the viruses suspected of being possible causes or triggers for CFS, are enteroviruses and retroviruses. These include the Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) that is usually contracted during childhood and carried throughout one’s lifetime, human herpesvirus 6 and the Cytomegalovirus. Candida albican overgrowth (fungal/yeast infection), although not in the virus category has also been suspected as a possible cause or trigger for CFS.
Some of these viruses, including EBV cause no symptoms in most people when contracted (can potentially cause mononucleosis) but will increase in the number of titers found in the blood when the virus replicates. It has been proposed as a possibility that the increased replication of viruses may occur when the immune system is not functioning well in suppressing their ability to replicate or reactivate. Reactivation would mean that a virus resurges at times, causing repeated illness in the infected person who has not fully developed immunity to it.
Imbalance in the Involuntary Nervous System
In other studies of CFS patients, they have been found to be experiencing dysfunction in their involuntary nervous systems (INS), also referred to as “autonomic failure” and “dysautonomia”. The INS is responsible for regulating blood pressure with changes in physical activity and changes in positions of the body (i.e. sitting, standing and lying flat). It also regulates all other involuntary bodily functions, including respiration, digestion, kidney function, liver function, etc… and increases these functions when needed (sympathetic response) or decreases them (parasympathetic response).
An imbalance in this system will cause these functions to be inadequate at times and over-responsive at other times. If for example, physical activity is increased and blood pressure needs to rise but fails to do so, this can result in bodily fatigue due to a lack of needed blood flow to the muscles and organs of the body. If bodily functions need to decrease at times of rest or when sleep is needed but remain highly activated this will result in fatigue as well.
Dysfunction of the Immune System
Other, conclusions resulting from medical studies of CFS causes, have found that patients with the syndrome are experiencing a dysfunction of the immune system. The immunity or what might be referred to as “resistance” to viruses and allergens is greatly diminished in CFS patients. This means that the body is more susceptible to viruses and allergens and recovers more slowly from exposure and infections to them, than are people with healthy immune systems. Infections of these types can cause a mild systemic (system-wide) inflammation in the body and cause the person experiencing them, to feel as if they are experiencing perpetual flu-like symptoms or a continual low-grade fever.
U.S. National Institutes of Health- Centers for Disease Control information on CFS:
Possible Causes of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Chronic Stress
CFS patients often report in medical study questionnaires that they experienced severe, prolonged or traumatic stress, just before the onset of their CFS symptoms. Stress is responded-to by the part of the endocrine system called the “HPA Axis”, standing for the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal gland system. When chronic stress is experienced, this system is hyper-active and over time, becomes “blunted”, meaning it becomes fatigued or diminished in its ability to run at overdrive. This causes slower release of the hormones that come from these endocrine glands that work in sync (full-circle) to supply the body with stress coping abilities.
The end result of the hypothalamus stimulating the pituitary gland, which then in-turn stimulates the adrenal glands, is the release of the stress hormone “cortisol”. When this system becomes blunted after extended hyperactivity, cortisol levels begin to fall or what is sometimes referred to as “hypocortisolemia” or “hypoadrenia”. Some sources recognizing this mild form of adrenal dysfunction refer to it as “Adrenal Fatigue”.
PubMed published research study citing the association of CFS to HPA Axis dysfunction:
U.S. NIH - CFS and Dysregulations of the HPA Axis
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