Quality of life and its association with irritable bowel syndrome and fatigue ten years after giardiasis, 2019, Litleskare et al

[Andy]

Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Gastroenteritis has been associated with complications such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and chronic fatigue (CF). Little is known about the implications for quality of life (QoL) in this setting. The aims of this study were to evaluate the association between exposure to Giardia infection and QoL ten years after the infection, and how this related to IBS and CF.

METHODS:
We followed 1252 patients with laboratory-verified Giardia lamblia infection and a matched control group for 10 years after an epidemic in Bergen, Norway, in 2004. The main outcome was QoL after ten years as defined by the Short-form 12 version 2 with a physical component summary (PCS) and a mental component summary (MCS), both with range 0-100 (T-score). Regression analyses were performed using mixed modeling.

KEY RESULTS:
Mean PCS T-score in the exposed group (51.4; 95% CI: 50.6-52.1) was 2.8 T-score points (95% CI: -3.8 to -1.9, P < 0.001) lower than that in the control group (54.2; 95% CI: 53.7-54.8). The mean MCS T-score was also 2.8 T-score points (95% CI: -3.8 to -1.9, P < 0.001) lower among the exposed (48.9; 95% CI: 48.2-49.6) than the controls (51.7; 95% CI: 51.1-52.4). Further analyses found that the effect of Giardia exposure on QoL was mediated by IBS and CF.

CONCLUSIONS & INFERENCES:
Exposure to Giardia infection was associated with a lower QoL ten years later as compared to a control group, an effect that was mediated by IBS and CF.

Open access at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nmo.13559

 

[ME/CFS Skeptic]

This seems to be the most important sentence in this paper:

the difference between the exposed and the controls for both PCS and MCS at 2.8 T‐score points was below the proposed thresh‐old of 3 T‐score points that is considered clinically significant

 

[Dolphin]

This seems to be the most important sentence in this paper:

the difference between the exposed and the controls for both PCS and MCS at 2.8 T‐score points was below the proposed thresh‐old of 3 T‐score points that is considered clinically significant

Though those figures relate to the whole sample. The scores of the cases are lower:

 

[Kalliope]

This giardia outbreak from 2004 infected over 5 000 people, which makes it the largest outbreak in Europe. Many have reported developing ME after the outbreak. Not sure why the researchers didn't include ME in this paper.

The University in Bergen has written the following article about the study which was published today on a news site about research:

Forskning.no - Giardia-smittede sliter fortsatt med helsa ti år etter
google translation - Giardia infected still struggling with health ten years later