Thread by @AnilvanderZee

"@BhupeshPrusty Prusty thinks #MECFS originates in early childhood, when most people are infected by human betaherpesvirus 6B (HHV-6B), which causes a mild illness lasting a few days. “Afterwards, the virus stays in our body for the rest of our lives,” 🧵

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says Prusty. Later in life, the virus can become reactivated – and it is this that Prusty and some others believe causes ME/CFS.

In a 2021 study, Cliff and her colleagues took monthly saliva samples from 30 people with #MECFS and 14 people who didn’t have the condition. Those 🧵

with #MECFS had higher levels of HHV-6B and another herpes virus, HHV-7, than those without. In people whose symptoms fluctuated over time, more severe symptoms were associated with higher levels of HHV-6B and HHV-7, than those without. In people whose symptoms fluctuated 🧵

over time, more severe symptoms were associated with higher levels of HHV-6B and HHV-7.

In 2022, Prusty and his colleagues studied post-mortem tissue samples from three people who had been diagnosed with #MECFS, plus three who hadn’t. They only found signs of HHV-6B activity 🧵

in the brain and spinal cord of those who’d had #MECFS.

“The virus doesn’t have to be completely active [and] doesn’t have to produce viral particles,” says Prusty, who describes what the team saw as localised infections. This limited viral activity seems to be enough to

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cause chronic symptoms.
Prusty thinks reactivated herpes cause chronic symptoms.
Prusty thinks reactivated herpes viruses may also be a factor in #longcovid, specifically in cases where symptoms last beyond three months or even for years.

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In line with this, in 2022, Eirini Apostolou at Linköping University, Sweden, and her colleagues showed that people had higher levels of antibodies against the herpes viruses #EBV, #HHV6 and HERV-K in their saliva three to six months after becoming infected with #SARSCoV2,

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suggesting that the herpes viruses were reactivated after they caught the coronavirus. This was particularly true for those who also had #MECFS."

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#pwme #myalgicE #longCOVID #millionsmissing

archive.vn/2023.03.04-224…