Authors Dr. Walter Koroshetz and Dr. Francis Collins
Imagine going to work or school every day, working out at the gym, spending time with family and friends—basically, living your life in a full and vigorous way. Then one day, you wake up, feeling sick. A bad cold maybe, or perhaps the flu. A few days pass, and you think it should be over—but it’s not, you still feel achy and exhausted. Now imagine that you never get better— plagued by unrelenting fatigue not relieved by sleep. Any exertion just makes you worse. You are forced to leave your job or school and are unable to participate in any of your favorite activities; some days you can’t even get out of bed. The worst part is that your doctors don’t know what is wrong and nothing seems to help.
Unfortunately, this is not fiction, but reality for at least a million Americans—who suffer from a condition that carries the unwieldy name of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS), a perplexing disease that biomedical research desperately needs to unravel [1]. Very little is currently known about what causes ME / CFS or its biological basis [2]. Among the many possibilities that need to be explored are problems in cellular metabolism and changes in the immune system.
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