CDC: Chronic fatigue more common than studies have shown
Health officials recently released the first nationally representative estimate of how many U.S. adults have chronic fatigue syndrome: 3.3 million.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s number is larger than previous studies have suggested, and is likely boosted by some patients with long COVID. The condition clearly “is not a rare illness,” said the CDC’s Dr. Elizabeth Unger, one of the report’s co-authors.
Chronic fatigue is characterized by at least six months of severe exhaustion not helped by bed rest. Patients also report pain, brain fog and other symptoms that can worsen after exercise, work or other activity. There is no cure, and no blood test or scan to enable a quick diagnosis.
Doctors have not been able to pin down a cause, although research suggests it is the body’s prolonged overreaction to an infection or other jolt to the immune system.
The condition rose to prominence nearly 40 years ago, when clusters of cases were reported in Incline Village, Nevada, and Lyndonville, New York. Some doctors dismissed it as psychosomatic and called it “yuppie flu.”
Some physicians still hold that opinion, experts and patients say.
Doctors “called me a hypochondriac and said it was just anxiety and depression,” said Hannah Powell, a 26-year-old Utah woman who went undiagnosed for five years.
The new CDC report is based on a survey of 57,000 U.S. adults in 2021 and 2022. Participants were asked if a doctor or other health care professional had ever told them they had myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome, and whether they still have it. About 1.3% said yes to both questions.
That translated to about 3.3 million U.S. adults, CDC officials said.
Among the other findings: The syndrome was more common in women than men, and in white people compared with some other racial and ethnic groups. Those findings are consistent with earlier, smaller studies.
However, there was less of a gap between women and men than some previous studies suggested, and there was hardly any difference between white and Black people. The study also found that a higher percentage of poor people said they had it than affluent people.