Association of chronic fatigue syndrome with premature telomere attrition

Details

• Alternative Title:
  J Transl Med
• Personal Author:
  Rajeevan, Mangalathu S. ; Murray, Janna ; Oakley, Lisa ; Lin, Jin-Mann S. ; Unger, Elizabeth R.
• Description:
  Background
  
  Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), is a severely debilitating condition of unknown etiology. The symptoms and risk factors of ME/CFS share features of accelerated aging implicated in several diseases. Using telomere length as a marker, this study was performed to test the hypothesis that ME/CFS is associated with accelerated aging.
  
  Methods
  
  Participant (n = 639) data came from the follow-up time point of the Georgia CFS surveillance study. Using the 1994 CFS Research Case Definition with questionnaire-based subscale thresholds for fatigue, function, and symptoms, participants were classified into four illness groups: CFS if all criteria were met (n = 64), CFS-X if CFS with exclusionary conditions (n = 77), ISF (insufficient symptoms/fatigue) if only some criteria were met regardless of exclusionary conditions (n = 302), and NF (non-fatigued) if no criteria and no exclusionary conditions (n = 196). Relative telomere length (T/S ratio) was measured using DNA from whole blood and real-time PCR. General linear models were used to estimate the association of illness groups or T/S ratio with demographics, biological measures and covariates with significance set at p < 0.05.
  
  Results
  
  The mean T/S ratio differed significantly by illness group (p = 0.0017); the T/S ratios in CFS (0.90 ± 0.03) and ISF (0.94 ± 0.02) were each significantly lower than in NF (1.06 ± 0.04). Differences in T/S ratio by illness groups remained significant after adjustment for covariates of age, sex, body mass index, waist–hip ratio, post-exertional malaise and education attainment. Telomere length was shorter by 635, 254 and 424 base pairs in CFS, CFS-X and ISF, respectively, compared to NF. This shorter telomere length translates to roughly 10.1–20.5, 4.0–8.2 and 6.6–13.7 years of additional aging in CFS, CFS-X and ISF compared to NF respectively. Further, stratified analyses based on age and sex demonstrated that the association of ME/CFS with short telomeres is largely moderated by female subjects < 45 years old.
  
  Conclusions
  
  This study found a significant association of ME/CFS with premature telomere attrition that is largely moderated by female subjects < 45 years old. Our results indicate that ME/CFS could be included in the list of conditions associated with accelerated aging. Further work is needed to evaluate the functional significance of accelerated aging in ME/CFS.
  
  Electronic supplementary material
  
  The online version of this article (10.1186/s12967-018-1414-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Immunosenescence Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Research Stress Telomere Attrition
• Source:
  J Transl Med. 16.
• Pubmed ID:
  29486769
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC5830066
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Volume:
  16
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:8cb647bf4da3825e44424802648b54b2a8be7fd5af375b0fbf7b418a12fc4021
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/52914/cdc_52914_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.25 MB ]