Suffering from extreme weakness, inability to think straight, disrupted sleep and headache? It could simply be that, just like me, you're due for a holiday, but if these symptoms have been recurring for quite some time, you might just want to have your white blood cells analyzed using real-time PCR and find out if you have the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Long dismissed by doctors as a psychosomatic illness ("it's all in the mind"), CFS now seem to have a clear pathogenesis pattern. Using DNA chip technology and real-time PCR, Jonathan Kerr and his team were able to detect 15 genes that were up to four times as active in people with CFS, and one gene which was less active. Some of the genes identified by the team could the explain some of the symptoms and even provide supportive evidence to the theory that CFS is sometimes triggered by viruses such as Epstein-Barr, Q fever, enteroviruses and parvovirus B19.

"This exciting new work shows that some aspects of this complex illness may be understandable in molecular terms, and that CFS is not a 'made up' illness," says Russell Lane, a neurologist at Charing Cross Hospital in London.

And because it has been shown where the problem lies, this could lead to development of pharmacological interventions.

Read news article here. Kerr's paper will appear online in the August issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology(vol 58, p 823, 860). In the meantime, I'm gonna be off for a two week holiday the first two week of August. Am fairly sure twhat I have is simply wanderlust, not CFS.