The Lifesciences Magazine

  People with chronic fatigue syndrome are a select group who sometimes take years to get a formal diagnosis. According to experts, up to 91 percent of Americans are living without a diagnosis for a sickness that saps their vitality, intelligence, and ability to live carefree lives. However, if a recently created diagnostic test passes inspection, those figures may eventually improve. The preliminary findings of a blood test that may reliably discriminate between healthy people and those with chronic fatigue syndrome (commonly known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or ME/CFS) have just been published by a team of researchers lead by the University of Oxford. “The development of a simple blood test with the potential for early diagnosis [of ME/CFS] is] a critical goal,” write Jiabao Xu and colleagues in their open-access, peer-reviewed study. They assert that “early diagnosis would enable patients to manage their conditions more effectively, potentially leading to new discoveries in di...