4 Metabolic Dysfunction

From: <a href="https://www.meassociation.org.uk/2017/11/new-scientist-blood-cells-in-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-are-drained-of-energy-04-november-2017/">New Scientist: Blood cells in chronic fatigue syndrome are drained of energy | 04 November 2017 | ME Association</a>

In another test that artificially pushed cells to their maximum capacity starting from baseline, CFS cells could only increase their mitochondrial output by 47 per cent, roughly half the 98 per cent increase achieved by control cells.

The implication is that cells from CFS patients can’t raise their output to meet the energy demands of routine physical tasks.

“These exciting results confirm what others have postulated but not been able to prove, namely that cells of patients with CFS are easily metabolically exhausted when put under any form of stress,” says Stephen Holgate of Southampton General Hospital. “In many ways, this is how patients describe their whole-body experience with CFS.”

“This is a major step forwards, supporting previous studies, which demonstrated that mitochondrial function can be impaired in this illness,” says Karl Morten of the University of Oxford. “A major question now is whether the situation in these white blood cells reflects whole-body mitochondrial dysfunction in patients,” he says.

To that end, Tomas is currently taking samples of muscle cells and testing them in the same way as the blood cells. “It would be good if we could get this repeated in muscle cells,” she says. “It’s important the patient population know we are looking into this. Patients sometimes think no one cares, but we do have interest, and want to find out what’s going on.”

Across almost all measures of energy capacity, the cells from people with CFS were weaker compared with their healthy counterparts. If other cells are equally compromised, it could explain why people with the condition are often bed- or wheelchair-bound for months, and struggle with even modest physical exertion.

“The CFS cells couldn’t produce as much energy as the control cells,” says Tomas. “At baseline, they didn’t perform as well, but the maximum they could reach under any conditions was so much lower than the controls.”

Tomas and her colleagues measured the efficiency of mitochondria, the energy-generating powerhouses in cells. The mitochondria are the dominant source of energy for all of our cells. The team found that mitochondria in CFS cells can’t produce energy properly.

“We’ve shown definitively that it’s a fault in mitochondria,” says Tomas. “It points directly to a physiological, not psychological disorder.”

Tomas measured the oxygen consumption of cells in comfortable and stressed conditions, to see how well they could raise their game with glucose in short supply, a situation forcing the cells to consume more oxygen to compensate. Even at baseline, control cells consumed twice as much oxygen as the CFS cells. The disparity widened dramatically when the cells were stressed.