Here are some of the comments taking from various articles to consider: Take a moment and reflect how it counters totally Wessely arguments on ME/CFS!
1. Sharp reduction in the ability to engage in pre-illness activity levels that lasts for more than six months and is accompanied by deep fatigue that only recently developed.
2. Worsening of symptoms after any type of exertion, including "physical, cognitive or emotional stress."
3. Sleep that doesn't refresh the sufferer.
In addition, the committee said, true chronic fatigue syndrome also includes either cognitive impairment or the inability to remain upright with symptoms that improve when the person with the condition lies down, known as "orthostatic intolerance." Further symptoms severe headaches, muscle pain and sensitivity to light and noise.
That it cost the economy up $24 billion. This is more than the P2P panel stated
The authors of the new report agreed that the term chronic fatigue syndrome “has done a disservice to many patients,” but said that myalgic encephalomyelitis “does not accurately describe the major features of the disease.”
Most people with ME/CFS suffer from extreme exhaustion, made worse by even mild physical or mental effort. After a crash, known as postexertional malaise, recovery may take days or weeks, and sleep brings no relief. These symptoms are recognized as key defining characteristics of the disease, according to the new criteria. Problems with speaking, thinking and remembering, known as cognitive impairments, are also widespread among patients.
Some sufferers have good days and bad days; others are confined to bed for months or years. Many people with the disease experience severe headaches, muscle pain and sensitivity to light and noise.
Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, a Vanderbilt University specialist on genetics and the law, who chaired the committee and said it "issued a clarion call" for physicians to do a better job.
"It's time to stop saying that this is a just figment of people's imagination. This is a real disease, with real physical manifestations that need to be identified and cared for," Committee Chair Ellen Wright Clayton, MD, JD, professor of pediatrics and director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, told Medscape Medical News.
Although some research has suggested that inflammation of the central nervous system is involved, its role is not proven, and muscle pain is not as prominent as other features.
Most patients develop the syndrome after contracting a cold, flu or other viral illness, but other environmental or toxic exposures may act as triggers. Although no cause has been identified, people with the illness may suffer neurological, hormonal and immunological impairments.
"We just needed to put to rest, once and for all, the idea that this is just psychosomatic or that people were making this up, or that they were just lazy," Ellen Wright Clayton of Vanderbilt University. Dr. Clayton specifically stated that this is not a somataform disorder but a real biomedical disease!
Seeking and receiving a diagnosis can be a frustrating process for several reasons, including skepticism of health care providers about the serious nature of [chronic fatigue syndrome] and the misconception that it is a psychogenic illness or even a figment of the patient’s imagination," the panel wrote. Less than a third of medical schools include the condition in their curricula and only 40 percent of medical textbooks contain information on it, the experts said.
The cause remains unknown but symptoms may be triggered by an infection or "immunization, anesthetics, physical trauma, exposure to environmental pollutants, chemicals and heavy metals and, rarely, blood transfusions." Clayton said mononucleosis is "a major trigger" of chronic fatigue syndrome among adolescents, but little is known about causes beyond that.
"The IOM is such a prestigious body. It's the medical arm of the National Academy of Sciences. When the IOM talks, the medical community listens," Vernon said.
With the broad acceptance of a standard clinical definition, chronic fatigue syndrome patients could expect to see more support from physicians and, importantly, more coverage by insurance companies, Teitelbaum said.
People with chronic fatigue syndrome often have to convince their doctors that they aren't suffering from depression, even though their exhaustion has not left them depressed and they continue to enjoy many pleasurable interests -- just no energy to pursue them, he explained.
"You have no idea how frustrating it is to have a real devastating illness and have no name for it, to have people thinking you're a crazy person," Teitelbaum said. "Having a definition that really defines what a person has will help them get the care and support they need."
More than 1 million Americans have chronic fatigue syndrome, the CDC says, making it more prevalent than multiple sclerosis, lupus and many forms of cancer. CFS occurs most often in people in their 40s and 50s, and occurs four times more often in women than men.
Case definitions are great tools for epidemiologists, for disease hunters to get to the bottom of what's causing a malady, but they have to evolve in order to keep up with what you're finding," Vernon said.
SOURCES: News conference with: Ellen Wright Clayton, M.D., Craig-Weaver Professor of Pediatrics and professor, law, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; Institutes of Medicine, news release, Feb. 10, 2015; Suzanne Vernon, Ph.D., scientific director, Solve ME/CFS Initiative; Chris Fraker, Miami