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A not entirely gratuitous cat post

32 boo

24 spike

ATTENTION ATTENTION ATTENTION!  The Carnival of the Cats will be at Catcall next Sunday, and Laurence is planning a Carnival of the Cats #102 raffle:

I’d really like to make this a big carnival this time around
to celebrate the fact that catblogging has gotten its paw in the door
with the MSM here with a Chronicle.Community readerblog.

If there’s over 100 sites submitting catblogging posts to the
Carnival of the Cats this week, I’ll raffle out four special
cat-related gifts among the lucky participants.

So here is another cat post, pushing toward that hundred.

But I also have a relevant link, via inkyCIRCUS — Brain injury may cause chronic fatigue:

By Helen Carter
| ABC Science Online

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) might be caused by a
temporary ‘brain injury’ during the early, inflammatory stages of
glandular fever, according to Australian scientists.

"We believe
that parts of the brain which control perception of fatigue and pain
are damaged during the acute infection phase of glandular fever," says
lead researcher, Professor Andrew Lloyd from the University of New South Wales.

The researchers, who publish their study this week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, believe the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes glandular fever, might trigger CFS in some people.
. . .
The scientists found the virus itself does not cause this ongoing
fatigue but they hypothesise that a ‘hit and run’ brain injury does.
. . .
The study is the first to follow patients within a few weeks of acute glandular fever infection for a year.
. . .
The scientists will test their hypothesis by doing brain scans on study participants.

I’ve seen hypotheses about Epstein-Barr before, but none that have been validated by research. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this one.

5 responses to “A not entirely gratuitous cat post”

  1. Modulator Avatar
    Modulator

    Friday Ark #76

    We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….? We will add you…

    Reply
  2. Sylvia Avatar
    Sylvia

    Interesting. That “perception of fatigue and pain” bit sets off my alarm bells—sounds too much like “it’s all in their heads”—but at least they’re not shrinks. I think they’re jumping to conclusions by assuming the problem is brain damage. There is so much evidence for dysfunction in so many other areas of the body. All they really found was that blood virus levels were the same for those who recovered and those who didn’t. I think we knew that already. Their work linking ME/CFS to specific infectious diseases is really helpful, though. They’re on to something.

    Reply
  3. adin Avatar
    adin

    First off, I’ve been “solidly” diagnosed with ME/CFS for about 3 years…and I am one of the *few* people in the entire US to test negative for *any* EPB antibodies. But I did have a really nasty virus of some sort that put me in the hospital (105 fever, week of encephalitis) a few months before I started developing symptoms.

    So I put the EPB theory on extremely thin ice…though the assumption that swelling in the brain could cause damage seems plausible to me. “Perception of fatigue and pain” certainly sets off alarm bells, since my heart rate jumping from 70 -> 160 with mild “exercise” (aka walking around the physician’s office at a normal walking speed) has *nothing* to do with my “perception” of exercise, fatigue, pain, etc.

    I’d be extremely careful with this research. If they need an EPB neg ME/CFS patient, I’d be more than happy to help.

    Reply
  4. yaffa Avatar
    yaffa

    awww, cute looking cats.

    Reply
  5. Pris Avatar
    Pris

    I’ll be watching, too, since mine hit hard out of the blue one day..no virus or flu symptoms first at all. I’m glad they’re trying, tho.

    Reply

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