How mycobacterium tuberculosis infection could lead to the increasing risks of CFS and the potential immunological effects (...), 2022, Yang et al

Full title: How mycobacterium tuberculosis infection could lead to the increasing risks of chronic fatigue syndrome and the potential immunological effects: a population-based retrospective cohort study

Abstract

Background
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has been shown to be associated with infections. Tuberculosis (TB) is a highly prevalent infectious disease. Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and post-tuberculosis experience similar symptoms. Furthermore, chronic fatigue syndrome and tuberculosis share similar plasma immunosignatures. This study aimed to clarify the risk of chronic fatigue syndrome following the diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection (MTI), by analyzing the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan.

Methods
7666 patients aged 20 years or older with newly diagnosed Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection during 2000–2011 and 30,663 participants without Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection were identified. Both groups were followed up until the diagnoses of chronic fatigue syndrome were made at the end of 2011.

Results
The relationship between Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and the subsequent risk of chronic fatigue syndrome was estimated through Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, with the incidence density rates being 3.04 and 3.69 per 1000 person‐years among the non‐Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection populations, respectively (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] = 1.23, with 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.03–1.47). In the stratified analysis, the Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection group were consistently associated with a higher risk of chronic fatigue syndrome in the male sex (HR = 1.27, 95% CI 1.02–1.58) and age group of ≥ 65 years old (HR = 2.50, 95% CI 1.86–3.38).

Conclusions
The data from this population‐based retrospective cohort study revealed that Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection is associated with an elevated risk of subsequent chronic fatigue syndrome.

Open access: https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12967-022-03301-1

 

Which would mean that the definition of CFS would be a clinical one, probably this, http://www.icd9data.com/2015/Volume1/780-799/780-789/780/780.71.htm

 

Higher risk in 65+ year old males ! I think there has to be some doubt as whether the authors are identifying CFS - or chronic fatigue that is part of some post infection syndrome. Even if using ICD10-CM as the disease definition, following infection specific cases may have difficulty separating a disease specific condition from what appears to be the far more ubiquitous ME/CFS.

 

Immunoinflammatory pathway activation is one of the most researched topics related to CFS [14, 16]. Immune activation markers in CFS include increased levels of proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1β [27, 28].

Three out of four citations are to Maes including the dreaded Morris & Maes review.
This is just plain wrong. A bot could do better having scanned the literature.