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Viruses were not to blame for chronic fatigue syndrome
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is most common in developed countries. It is a disease that cannot be “cured” even by prolonged rest. It is wrong to confuse it with ordinary fatigue or lack of sleep. The occurrence of chronic fatigue syndrome is associated with the development of neurosis of the central regulatory centers of the autonomic nervous system, which is caused by the suppression of the activity of the zone responsible for inhibitory processes.
Despite studies that showed that chronic fatigue syndrome is caused by the mouse retrovirus XMRV, a new study by American scientists proves that this is not the case. Anything can cause a sluggish state, but a mouse virus has nothing to do with it.
The results of new research by scientists, published in the online publication of the American Society for Microbiology "mBio", indicate that chronic fatigue syndrome (myalgic encephalomyelitis), which leads to loss of work capacity and is also accompanied by weakness and muscle pain, cannot be caused by the retrovirus XMRV.
This conclusion was reached by three groups of researchers who subjected 147 tissue samples from patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and 146 samples from healthy people to a detailed analysis. For the sake of the experiment's purity, the scientists themselves did not know which samples were taken from sick people and which from healthy people.
Also, each group of specialists was given absolute freedom of choice in the use of methods for analysis in order to exclude possible claims and reproaches that, supposedly, the correct research method was simply not used.
In the end, it turned out that none of the teams found even traces of the viruses suspected of causing chronic fatigue syndrome.
In some tissue samples, antibodies were detected that could “catch” the mouse virus, but this result turned out to be false due to the non-specificity of the immunoglobulins that reacted to foreign molecules.
The group at greatest risk includes residents of large cities, whose unbalanced emotional and intellectual load comes at the expense of physical activity.
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