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Associations of physical and psychiatric conditions with CFS in Germany: an exploratory case-control study. Jacob et al. 2020

Discussion in 'Psychosomatic research - ME/CFS and Long Covid' started by John Mac, Jul 20, 2020.

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  1. John Mac

    John Mac Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Full title: Associations of physical and psychiatric conditions with chronic fatigue syndrome in Germany: an exploratory case-control study

    https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...ontrol-study/3EF0A2F5558707BB90526F10FE83C1CF
     
    John Mac, Jul 20, 2020
    #1
    Andy, Hutan, ME/CFS Skeptic and 3 others like this.
  2. Trish

    Trish Moderator Staff Member

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    I wonder how many of these are misdiagnoses of CFS. It seems to be pretty well known that some cancer treatments cause fatigue symptoms, and depression also includes fatigue as a symptom, and sleep disorders are likely to leave the sufferer fatigued or at least tired all the time. So it may be not so much that cancer, depression or sleep disorders cause CFS, as the fatigue associated with these conditions and/or their treatments, is being misdiagnosed as CFS.
     
    Trish, Jul 20, 2020
    #2
    Mithriel, FMMM1, Lisa108 and 15 others like this.
  3. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    An important issue with so-called prospective studies for ME/CFS is that in the period allegedly before patients had ME/CFS, they could have had it but just not been diagnosed.

    This paper may perhaps mention this possibility but I’ve seen some that haven’t.
     
    Dolphin, Jul 20, 2020
    #3
    MSEsperanza, Snow Leopard, Sean and 5 others like this.
  4. Hoopoe

    Hoopoe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Germany doesn't really recognize CFS and I think most patients would be diagnosed with depression or somatization disorder.
     
    Hoopoe, Jul 20, 2020
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    Lisa108, MSEsperanza, alktipping and 5 others like this.
  5. Hutan

    Hutan Moderator Staff Member

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    It's always interesting to see the male:female ratio in ME/CFS studies from different cultures. 65% female in diagnosed CFS cases is towards the lower end of the range of what we often see.
     
    Hutan, Jul 20, 2020
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    Lisa108, Trish, MSEsperanza and 4 others like this.
  6. Snow Leopard

    Snow Leopard Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Depression was found in 15.6% of CFS patients, which does not seem like an unreasonable estimate.
    Cancer prevalence was 6.4% in CFS patients, which seems high, given a rate of 1.9% in age matched controls. In principle, there shouldn't be a presentation bias for cancer in CFS patients, unless the cancer is a risk factor for CFS or vice versa (a very large NIH study found that CFS only has one cancer association: lymphoma).

    A reasonably long of other physical conditions were also associated with CFS.

    Yes, retrospective analyses of medical records suffer from biases of diagnosis, which is to say biased by the behaviour of doctors.
     
    Snow Leopard, Jul 21, 2020
    #6
    TiredSam, alktipping, FMMM1 and 9 others like this.

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