Wednesday July 27, 2005
More light on chronic fatigue
Help may finally be at hand for sufferers of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), thanks to a group of British researchers who have found abnormalities in the white blood cells of the afflicted.
If the early results are borne out by wider research – and initial indications are that they will be – it could lead not only to a blood test for the condition but possibly a drug to treat it, New Scientist magazine reported.
“We have shown that a significant part of the pathogenesis resides in the white blood cells and in their activity,” team leader Jonathan Kerr said.
“It will open the door to development of pharmacological interventions,” he added.
It will be welcome news to CFS sufferers whose symptoms of acute fatigue, headaches, disrupted sleep patterns and an inability to think clearly are often dismissed as being all in the mind.
Kerr’s team found that a group of genes in the white blood cells of CFS sufferers were up to four times more active than those without the affliction while one was less active.
“The involvement of such genes does seem to fit with the fact that these patients lack energy and suffer from fatigue,” Kerr said.
It is estimated that as many as 500,000 people in the United States alone are suffering from a CFS-like condition.
Estrogen gene and infertility
Fertility drugs may not help certain women if they lack a certain estrogen-related gene, scientists studying mice suggested. Mice genetically engineered to lack the gene did not ovulate in response to fertility drugs, the researchers found.
If the same is true in women, it could help explain some forms of infertility and also help steer women away from treatments unlikely to help them.
The gene is called estrogen receptor beta, the team of National Institutes of Health researchers report in the August issue of Endocrinology.
“What we found is that the beta estrogen receptor plays a role in moving the egg outside the ovary so it can be fertilised,” Kenneth Korach of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) said.
“We never knew before what function this receptor played in reproduction.”
The NIEHS researchers treated normal female mice and genetically engineered mice with fertility drugs similar to those commonly used by women undergoing fertility treatments.
The mice bred to lack this receptor gene were more likely to be infertile, or had fewer offspring. When treated with fertility drugs the mice did not produce more egg cells.
Estrogen receptor beta is known to respond to environmental and dietary chemicals that can mimic the effects of estrogen and stimulate the body’s natural hormones, such as genistein, a compound found in soy products, the NIEHS said.
Breast cancer risk
Women with benign breast lesions bear a higher risk of eventually developing breast cancer, according to a study released in the United States.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, gave evidence for the need for women whose biopsies of breast lesions proved benign to remain wary of the possibility that a malignancy could later develop.
“Our findings indicate a link between select types of benign breast lesions and the later development of breast cancer,” said Lynn Hartmann, an oncologist with the Mayo Clinic who led the study.
The Mayo team, which is examining risk factors related to breast cancer, showed after tests on 9,087 women that the most common types of benign lesions, those classified as non-proliferative, do not increase the risk of a subsequent malignancy.
However, proliferative lesions that were benign in a biopsy were shown to have a high correlation to the later development of breast cancer. More than one million women each year have biopsies of breast lesions that turn up benign, the report said. – Stories from Reuters and AFP
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