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   Chronic fatigue syndrome is real, researchers say   
      
      
   By Jacque Wilson, CNN   
   updated 12:00 PM EDT, Thu October 30, 2014   
      
   Some chronic fatigue syndrome patients are dismissed as hypochondriacs, one   
   doctor says.   
      
      
   STORY HIGHLIGHTS   
   Diagnosing chronic fatigue syndrome is difficult   
   New study offers hope by showing brain abnormalities in these patients   
   Chronic fatigue syndrome causes excessive exhaustion   
      
   (CNN) -- People with chronic fatigue syndrome are exhausted, no matter how   
   much rest they get, for more than six months at a time. They suffer from   
   muscle and joint pain and may experience short-term memory loss.   
   But diagnosing chronic fatigue syndrome is difficult, according to the Centers   
   for Disease Control and Prevention. There's no blood test or brain scan that   
   definitively identifies the condition, so doctors must first rule out many   
   other disorders with    
   similar symptoms.   
      
      
   A new discovery may change that.   
   Scientists at Stanford University compared the brain MRI scans of 15 patients   
   with chronic fatigue syndrome with the scans of 14 healthy patients of the   
   same age and gender. They found that the patients with chronic fatigue   
   syndrome had slightly less    
   white matter in their brains. White matter contains your brain's communication   
   cables, which enable regions of the brain to talk to each other.   
   The scientists also saw abnormalities in a specific tract in the patients'   
   right hemispheres and found that two connection points in the brains of the   
   chronic fatigue patients were thicker than the same connection points in the   
   healthy patients.   
      
   "The differences correlated with their fatigue -- the more abnormal the tract,   
   the worse the fatigue," study author Dr. Michael Zeineh said in a statement.   
   The results of the study were published this week in the journal Radiology.   
   The study was small, and Zeineh says the research needs to be duplicated with   
   more patients to confirm the results. But it offers hope to those with   
   undiagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome.   
      
   "Most CFS patients at some point in time have been accused of being   
   hypochondriacs and their symptoms dismissed by others," Zeineh told Today   
   Health. "And there is still skepticism in the medical community about the   
   diagnosis. That's one of the reasons    
   these findings are important."   
      
   http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/30/health/chronic-fatigue-syndrome/   
      
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