Research links chronic fatigue to heart trouble

15 June 2003

DONNA CHISHOLM

Sufferers of chronic fatigue syndrome - the so-called "yuppie flu" - may in fact have a serious heart ailment, researchers have found.

The baffling disease, which is thought to afflict around 16,000 New Zealanders, causes debilitating weakness, fatigue, muscle pain and insomnia, and its cause has not been identified.

The new study by a team of researchers in New Jersey measured the function of the left ventricle of the heart - its main pumping chamber.

During exercise, the heart function of the 16 chronic fatigue patients declined but increased in the four "non-athletic" control patients.

The American Physiological Society said the findings raised the possibility that some chronic fatigue patients may have heart disorders that were subtle enough to escape clinical diagnoses but significant enough in some patients - perhaps in combination with other factors - to give symptoms of fatigue.

Lead researcher Arnold Peckerman told the WebMD website that there had been suggestions chronic fatigue syndrome was brought on by a virus, and some of the suspected viruses "have an affinity for the heart".

Peckerman said the virus infection might not be obvious because of the length of time it took to make a diagnosis - usually a minimum of six months and often much longer - after symptoms appeared.

Previous studies, including one from Dunedin's Red Blood Cell Research Ltd, have pointed to circulation problems being involved.

The centre's investigator, Les Simpson, believes the shape of red blood cells could be involved. He found the blood of sufferers did not filter easily because it contained more flat-shaped cells than usual.

He had read the American study with interest but said there was no appreciation of the possibility that changes in the blood could produce the changes they had detected in ventricular function.

"In my view if you have a cardiomyopathy that is what you have - and not chronic fatigue syndrome."

Auckland patient Cheryl Welch says the method used in the research, known as MUGA, is available in some hospitals here and she is trying to book a test. "This is a most interesting study because it uses a really proven method. It's probably right because when I had an operation three years ago and had tumours removed, the assisting surgeon told me I virtually didn't bleed and it was very unusual."Previous cardiac tests had shown no abnormality, she said, although she had often suspected a heart problem.