Comment on: Chronic unexplained fatigue. [Postgrad Med J. 2002]
I found the editorial on chronic fatigue syndrome by White both surprising and disappointing, because he used the title “Chronic unexplained fatigue” and the subtitle “A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”, but his editorial, by ignoring very important facts about chronic fatigue syndrome, actually perpetuates that riddle, rather than helping to solve it.
If a puzzling and poorly manageable condition shares more than 40 features, including all of its diagnostic criteria, with a well known and easily treatable disease, this astounding clinical overlap should not be ignored, because reason not only suggests that the mysterious illness may simply be a form of the well known disease, but also hints that it is worthwhile assessing whether the classic therapy for that treatable disease could be effective for the enigmatic condition as well.
You can read the rest of this comment here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1757928/pdf/v078p00763a.pdf
Source: Baschetti R. Chronic unexplained fatigue. Postgrad Med J. 2002 Dec;78(926):763; author reply 763. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1757928/pdf/v078p00763a.pdf