Abso-freaking-loutely,
@mango.
I'm referring to Unger's presentation at the CDC in the first half of that. From my (personal) RFI response:
Psychosomatic model leads to bias
Elizabeth Unger (2016) performed a seven-center study in which she compared the functional status of CFS patients and healthy controls. Patients’ mental health and emotional role functioning was not statistically different from that of controls, though they performed far more poorly on other markers of functional status, including physical functioning, bodily pain, general health perceptions, vitality, physical role functioning, and social role functioning (Unger, 2016).
Figure 2: Functional status is substantially impaired in comparison to healthy controls, with the exception of mental health and emotional function (Unger, 2016)
I am going to have to search around for the second study -- I read it literally years ago. I'm going to have to hunt.
Now, to answer the general question (initially asked in this thread) of whether patients with CCC definitions are actually more depressed, we would need to look at more than one study.
Also from my RFI response:
If ME were a psychosomatic illness, one would expect that functional impairment would correlate with mental health functioning; however, Jason et al. (2016) also found that mental health scores did not correlate to symptom severity or any other impairment.
Ok, with me so far? Final nail:
Multiple studies have now made the case for ME being a separate illness from CFS, or perhaps a subset, with 40-60% of those who meet the Fukuda criteria (1994) also meeting the more stringent CCC and ICC criteria (Maes, Twisk, & Johnson, 2012).
Jason et al. (2016) found that patients who met the ICC or CCC criteria had significantly more functional impairment than those who met the Fukuda criteria alone. These patients tested lower on physical functioning, role physical, bodily pain, general health, and vitality than their CFS counterparts. Symptoms experienced by the ME group were found to be more severe (Jason et al., 2016). Johnston et al. (2014) also found that patients who met the ICC or CCC criteria were more functionally impaired than those who met the CDC criteria alone.
Another study divided patients into three groups: a group that experienced chronic fatigue as a symptom but did not meet the Fukuda criteria (CF); a group that met the Fukuda criteria but did not experience PEM (CFS); and a group that experienced PEM (ME). The researchers found that patients with ME had higher scores on concentration difficulties as well as the highest levels of IL-1, TNF-α, and neopterin; CFS patients had significantly lower levels of these inflammatory markers, and CF patients had even lower levels, which were still statistically different from that of controls (Maes, Twisk, & Johnson, 2012).
Le transitive property:
CCC and ICC patients are more impaired than controls.
Functional impairment does not correlate to psychological symptomology.
Therefore, CCC criteria is not associated with greater prevalence of psychological symptoms.
-J
Bibliography:
Jason, L. A., Sunnquist, M., Brown, A., Evans, M., & Newton, J. L. (2016, January). Are Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome different illnesses? A preliminary analysis.
J Health Psychol.,
21(1), 3-15.
http://doi.org/10.1177/1359105313520335
Johnston, S. C., Brenu, E. W., Hardcastle, S. L., Huth, T. K., Staines, D. R., & Marshall-Gradisnik, S. M. (2014). A comparison of health status in patients meeting alternative definitions for chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis.
Health and Quality of Life Outcomes,
12, 64.
http://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-12-64
Maes, M., Twisk, F. M., & Johnson, C. (2012, December 30). Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), and Chronic Fatigue (CF) are distinguished accurately: results of supervised learning techniques applied on clinical and inflammatory data.
Psychiatry Res.,
200(2-3), 754-760.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2012.03.031
Unger, E.R. (2016, February 16). Proceedings from CDC Public Health Grand Rounds, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Advancing Research and Clinical Education.
Public Health Approach to CFS. Retrieved from:
http://www.cdc.gov/cdcgrandrounds/archives/2016/february2016.htm