February 2011 ended with considerable buzz in the media regarding the discovery of distinctive proteins in the cerebrospinal fluid of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) subjects.

CFS patients were compared to healthy controls and to individuals who had been previously treated for Lyme Disease (LD). LD was chosen for comparison due to two symptoms such patients share with CFS patients—fatigue and cognitive dysfunction—which, according to the study, has made it difficult to tell the two illnesses apart. The study was led by Dr. Steven Schutzer at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and the combined efforts of researchers from multiple departments at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; State University of New York, NY; Albert Einstein School of Medicine, Bronx, NY; Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA; and Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

Their collective research yielded an in-depth description of proteins which are distinct to CFS—actually, many hundreds of proteins were detected and determined as being clearly unique for each disease. This data may advance the science that will eventually be able to explain the pathogenesis of CFS. “Distinct Cerebrospinal Fluid Proteomes Differentiate Post-Treatment Lyme Disease from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” was released by Schutzer, et al, on an open-access journal, PLoS ONE, Vol. 6, Issue 2, e17287.