Condition among athletes with similarities to ME?

Article today from the Norwegian broadcasting corporation about athletes who suddenly come down with something the doctors believe has similarities with ME - although the prognosis are good for the athletes.

Anyone else heard of this? Any thoughts?

NRK: Hvorfor slutter idrettekroppene å fungere?
google translation: Why do athletes' bodies stop functioning?

From the article:
At the Olympiatoppen they have found a a few things, as several signs of recognition.

Tests of blood tests have also been done. The results here can give way for further speculations.

The findings from the blood tests to practitioners not functioning any more are only seen in one other type of human being. And they are in a completely different state: Athletes who are in very good shape, are doing well at a high level. Often the same who end up winning championship medals.

- Yes ... We do not see a difference in the two situations, says Torgalsen.

The doctor thinks that is quite interesting himself.

- It may even be the same person at different times. The body responds completely to the two situations. At both, the systems are stressed, but they are not different. We do not know what it takes to take one direction or another. We have not managed to find the parameter that separates the two, "he says.

 

Body-builders have long spoken about 'over-training syndrome', early signs of it, and how to avoid it.

 

Yes, sounds like over-training. Is this meant?

Over-training has clear parameters and symptoms. A (professional) athlete who is over-trained should change the trainer. It is well-known that regeneration and training need to be organised properly (men need more regeneration in general). From what I have heard there are differences between ME and over-training (while an over-training-like state could be in ME, I guess).

 

Seems there is a distinguish between "overtraining" and "overtraining syndrome".

The doctor in the article was behind a guideline for overtraining syndrome which includes medical examination, blood tests, urine tests, ECG, lactate profile with anaerobic testing (two tests with 3-4 days interval, and repeated several times with a few weeks interval), psychological testing, support, interdisciplinary team, massage and close follow-up.

wow.. I wish these guys would take an interest to ME as well.

 

Yes, sounds like over-training-checking...but I think every professional athlete gets that regularly. If the parameters say "overtraining" it's too late.

I don't know. Seems the same to me. I might be wrong.

 

I seem to recall a statement in one research paper (it have been one of Yves Jammes papers but I may be mistaken) that there were reports of a number of elite cyclists that went on to develop ME/CFS years or even decades after stopping competitive cycling.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to track this statement down again so apologies if I've miss-remembered.

 

I found this:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9741601
But it's about only one cyclist, and the authors conclude exercise problems stem from deconditioning.

That's something else about CFS in athletes: https://www.active.com/triathlon/articles/examining-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-869760

I doubt it's really ME/CFS what the author is writing about.

Yves Jammes paper:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7ICKcu4AAAAJ&hl=en
I'm looking for the one you mentioned.

 

Did you mean this, @Marco?
http://file.scirp.org/Html/2-1320100_36970.htm

 

Interesting that he splits the ME/CFS cohort into post infection and post 'high level exercise' but it doesn't specifically mention the elite cyclists that I thought I remembered. Maybe I conflated this study and the elite cyclist 'deconditioned' case study.

Thanks for tracking them down.

 

There is a researcher here who I have spoken to who has studied both (and hasn't found anything interesting in common). They are not the same thing of course, but commonalities might be interesting.

 

Overtraining and pushing the body to its limits makes athletes prone to viral infections such as EBV. This is prevalent in road cycling. I do not have references to scientific papers, it is simply common knowledge within the cycling community but i am sure other sports would have the same type of presentation.

It certainly would be interesting to compare both populations for metabolomics and such, when we get closer to biomarkers. Biomarkers are coming, right?

 

Prof. Snell (Workwell Foundation) made some comparisons between the symptoms of ME and overtraining in this presentation (from 5 years ago):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL49DwGRs30

 

You're right and I maybe should have posted a time stamp for this 1 hour-long video : The comparison starts at 6:43 min.