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Feb. 5, 2010
The discovery of XMRV in 68% of people with CFS has raised questions for which we likely
won't have answers for a long time. In the meantime, however, scientists do know certain
things about XMRV and retroviruses in general.
On january 18, 2010, Dr. Lucina Bateman and the CFIDS Association put on a webinar called
"XMRV: Implications for CFS." It was a good review of what we've learned about XMRV and
also had some great information about retroviruses. What really caught my attention was
the portion about what retroviruses can do to the human body.
According to Dr. Bateman, retroviruses are known to cause a variety of blood-borne and
neurological diseases, which certainly fits with the prevailing (non-psychosocial) model
of chronic fatigue syndrome, and also fibromyalgia. Dr. Bateman listed symptoms that
retroviruses can cause. This list comes directly from her slides, and many of them
probably look familiar to you:
- Weakness
- Wasting
- Ataxia (imbalanced gait or walk)
- Arthritis
- Dementia
- Neuropathy (damage to nerves)
She also talked about how any condition that involves dysfunction, modulation or
suppression of the immune system can change how our bodies deal with the infectious agents
that are around us every day, allowing typically harmless ones to become dangerous.
You can see why scientists started looking for a retrovirus -- the more we learn, the more
it seems likely.
Still, we do have to remember that XMRV research is in its preliminary stages and it's too
early to say whether it causes chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, or any other
illness. We'll need a lot more research to figure out its role, and even more before we
know how to treat or prevent it (if needed).
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