NEW YORK (AP) – Health officials on Friday released the first nationally representative estimate of the number of U.S. adults affected by chronic fatigue syndrome: 3.3 million.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s numbers are higher than previous studies have suggested, and may be even more prevalent in some patients. long coronavirus. The condition is clearly “not a rare disease,” said the CDC’s Dr. Elizabeth Unger, one of the report’s co-authors.
Chronic fatigue is characterized by severe fatigue that persists for at least 6 months and is not relieved by bed rest. Patients also report pain, brain fog, and other symptoms that can be worse after exercise, work, or other activities. There is no cure, and there are no blood tests or scans that allow for a quick diagnosis.
Doctors have not been able to determine the cause, but research suggests it is a long-term condition of the body. overreaction It is susceptible to infections and other immune system shocks.
This condition gained attention about 40 years ago when outbreaks were reported in Incline Village, Nevada, and Lyndonville, New York. Some doctors dismissed it as a psychosomatic illness and called it the “yuppie flu.”
Some doctors still hold that opinion, according to experts and patients.
“Doctors called me a hypochondriac and told me it was just anxiety and depression,” said Hannah Powell, a 26-year-old Utah woman who went undiagnosed for five years.
new CDC report The study is based on a survey of 57,000 U.S. adults in 2021 and 2022. Participants were asked whether a doctor or other health care professional had ever told them they had myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome, and whether they still had the condition. Approximately 1.3% answered yes to both questions.
That equates to about 3.3 million U.S. adults, CDC officials said.
Among other findings, the syndrome was more common in women than men and more common in whites than in other races and ethnicities. These findings are consistent with previous small-scale studies.
But the findings also contradicted the long-held perception that chronic fatigue syndrome is a disease of wealthy white women.
The gap between women and men was smaller than some previous studies had suggested, and there was almost no difference between whites and blacks. The study also found that poor people were more likely than rich people to say they had the disease.
This misconception may be due to the fact that patients who have been diagnosed and treated tend to receive a little more traditional medical care, and it may be believed that patients who have been diagnosed and treated tend to receive a little more medical care, and that it is believed that they are tired, continue to be tired, and cannot be treated. This may be due to the fact that. Go to work,” said Dr. Braden Yelman, an expert at the Bateman Horn Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The report relied on the patient’s recollection and did not confirm the diagnosis through medical records.
Although this may lead to some overestimation, experts believe only a small percentage of people are diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, according to Dr. Daniel Clough, director of the Center for Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research at the University of Michigan. That’s what he thinks.
“In the United States, it has not become a common clinical diagnosis because there are no drugs approved for this diagnosis. There are no treatment guidelines for it,” Krogh said.
This tally may also include patients who: long coronavirus They were suffering from long-term fatigue, CDC officials said.
long coronavirus It is broadly defined as a chronic health problem weeks, months, or years after an acute coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection. Symptoms vary, but some patients have the same problems seen in people with chronic fatigue syndrome.
“We think it’s the same disease,” Yelman said. But the long-lasting coronavirus is becoming more widely accepted among doctors and being diagnosed more quickly, he said.
One of Yelman’s patients, Powell, was a high school athlete who became ill during a trip to Belize before his senior year. Her doctors thought she had malaria, but she seemed to be recovering. However, she continued to feel tired, had trouble sleeping, and had repeated episodes of vomiting. She gradually had to quit sports, she said, and it became difficult to attend to her schoolwork.
Five years later, she was diagnosed with chronic fatigue and began to regain some stability with regular fluids and medication. She graduated from the University of Utah and currently works for an organization that helps victims of domestic violence.
Getting care is still difficult, she says.
“When I go to the ER or see another doctor, I usually don’t say I have chronic fatigue syndrome, I say I’ve had COVID for a long time,” Powell said. Ta. “And I believed it right away.”
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Education Media Group. AP is solely responsible for all content.