Journal of IiME Volume 3 Issue 1 www.investinme.org Similarities of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): Comparisons of Co-Infections Garth L. Nicolson1, Nancy L. Nicolson1, Jorg Haier2 1The Institute for Molecular Medicine, Huntington Beach, California, 2Department of Surgery, University Hospital, Munster, Germany The 4th Invest in ME International ME/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Conference in London, UK, May 28-29, 2009. ABSTRACT Objective: The majority of neurodegenerative diseases, fatiguing illnesses and neurobehavioral disease patients have chronic infections. Therefore, we examined the presence of certain co-infections in the blood of patients with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and compared these to CFS patients. Methods: North American CFS and ASD patients were examined for various infections by isolation of leukocyte blood fractions and forensic polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to determine various infections. Results: CFS patients (n=100, age=39.7±8.9) show evidence of multiple, systemic infections (Odds Ratio = 18.0, 95% CL 8.5-37.9, p< 0.001) that may be important in CFS morbidity. CFS patients had a high prevalence (51%) of 1 of 4 Mycoplasma species (OR = 13.8, 95% CL 5.8-32.9, p< 0.001) and often showed evidence of co-infections with different Mycoplasma species, Chlamydia pneumoniae (OR = 8.6, 95% CL 1.0-71.1, p< 0.01) and/or active Human Herpes Virus-6 (HHV6) (OR = 4.5, 95% CL 2.0-10.2, p< 0.001). We found that 8% of the CFS patients showed evidence of C. pn. and 31% of active HHV-6 infections. Recently we examined ASD patients (n=48, age 8.4±2.8) and found a large subset (58.3%) of ASD patients showed evidence of Mycoplasma species infections compared to age-matched control subjects (OR = 13.9, p<0.001). ASD patients also had C. pn. (4/48 or 8.3% positive, OR = 5.6, p<0.01) and HHV-6 (14/48 or 29.2%, OR = 4.5, p<0.01) infections in their blood. ProfessorGarth Nicolson Prof. Garth L. Nicolson, PhD, The Institute for Molecular Medicine, P.O. Box 9355, S. Laguna Beach, California 92652. Tel: 949-715-7958; Email: gnicolson@immed.org Website: www.immed.org Conclusions: The results indicate that similar to CFS patients a large subset of neurobehavioral (ASD) disease patients show evidence of chronic infections. Although there were significant differences in median age and diagnoses between the two groups of patients, they tended to have similar incidence of three types of chronic infections: Mycoplasma, Chlamydia and HHV-6. Invest in ME (Charity Nr. 1114035) Page 14/76
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