Seeking the causes of post-Covid symptoms, researchers dust off data on college students with mononucleosis, 2020, David Tuller article (Jason study)

A great Stat news article by David Tuller @dave30th

https://twitter.com/user/status/1304432600220532739


Seeking the causes of post-Covid symptoms, researchers dust off data on college students with mononucleosis

From 2014 to 2018, DePaul University psychologist Leonard Jason and colleagues collected personal information and blood samples from more than 4,500 healthy college students. They followed the group as some students contracted mononucleosis and a small proportion of those subsequently developed chronic fatigue syndrome — the debilitating disease also called myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME/CFS, that is frequently triggered by an acute viral illness.

...

The researchers came to a quick realization: The extensive baseline data and biological materials they had gathered from thousands of students created a unique opportunity to investigate risk factors for developing acute and prolonged illness after infection with the novel coronavirus.
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In the college student study, funded with $3 million from the National Institutes of Health, about 5% of the sample developed mononucleosis and 8% of those patients met diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS after six months, said Jason, although the findings are still unpublished. Some immunological markers were associated with developing ME/CFS, he noted, while psychological factors were not

 

You can say that again. That made my day:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1304805622114852864

 

new blog by David Tuller
Psych Issues Do Not Predict ME/CFS, New Chicago Study Shows
https://www.virology.ws/2020/12/30/...o-not-predict-me-cfs-new-chicago-study-shows/

 

I wonder if they were capable of capturing cases of ME/CFS that did not follow mononucleosis, or if they just followed cases with a positive mono test. If they did log non-mono MECFS cases, they might then be able to see if anything distinguishes the mono-induced cases from the non-mono cases.

Mono is fairly common, so you might expect to capture a good number of cases out of 4500 students. Other triggers might not be common enough to show up significantly in a group that size - unless there was an outbreak of some other pathogen.

 

There was talk about doing a study like this to see if mono ME was the same as enteroviral ME when CFS showed up and everything fell apart.