Leonard Jason research finds that many young people have ME/CFS
UPDATED: Feb 15.2.20
A new study finds that 0.75%, or 1 in 130 young people, have ME.CFS – a higher rate than for adults. Only 5% of the young people already had a diagnosis. Prevalence increased rapidly as children moved into adolescence. And ME/CFS appears to be more common among African-American and Hispanic young people than among whites.
How do you find out how common an illness is when it is hard to diagnose, most doctors know little about it and many of them dismiss it as trivial? ME/CFS just is such an illness. Asking doctors to report the number of people they have diagnosed is likely to miss many real cases and studies using this method concluded that ME/CFS is rare. A better approach, used by a new study, is to screen large numbers of people in the community to find those that might have the illness, then give those people a thorough medical workup to establish who actually has it.
The prevalence of paediatric ME/CFS in a community-based sample (Jason, 2020)
Professor Leonard Jason (pictured above) and Dr Ben Katz led the new study and they estimated that 0.75% of young people aged 5 to 17 have ME/CFS, roughly one in every 130. The estimate isn’t exact, and the study authors say the figure could be as low as 0.54% and as high as 0.96%. Even using the low estimate would mean 290,000 in the US have the illness, along with 55,000 in the UK. Which suggests that ME/CFS is far from rare and is ruining a lot of young lives.
The 0.75% estimate is significantly higher than most generally-accepted estimates for adults. The CDC estimated 0.24% of adults had ME/CFS and Jason estimated 0.42%, both using a community screening approach similar to that used in the new study. ME/CFS affects a lot of adults but it appears to be an even more common problem for children.
The most important thing for children is to be accepted by their peers and if you don’t have the energy to socialize and do things with them and develop those friendships, that is a real obstacle.
Prof Lenny Jason, talking to the Chicago Tribune
Worryingly, the study also found that only 1 in 20 of the young people they diagnosed with ME/CFS already had a diagnosis. Though perhaps this is not so surprising, given that other studies in the US have found that only 10% to 15% of adults who have ME/CFS actually have a diagnosis.
ME/CFS is more common in older and non-white under 18s
This study collected data from 10,000 young people with diverse ethnic backgrounds and was able to estimate how common ME/CFS is in people with different ethnicity. It found that the illness was significantly more common among African American (1.1% prevalence) and Hispanic (1.3%) young people than among whites (0.63%).
ME/CFS also becomes increasingly common as children move into adolescence, as the graph below shows.
The authors suggested the changes with age could be due to the hormonal and psychological changes of adolescence. It could, they say, also be due to children being exposed to more environmental and biological factors as they get older. One factor in the increase is likely to be glandular fever (infectious mononucleosis), which leads to ME/CFS for about one person in ten. Glandular fever becomes more common in adolescence because the virus that triggers it is spread by kissing.
How the study worked
The study had two phases. In the community screening phase, the study used trained volunteers to call 137,000 telephone numbers in greater Chicago. These calls identified 23,000 households with children between the ages of five and 17. Just under a quarter of these households, 5,600 (24%), agreed to take part in the screening questionnaire, which collected information on 10,000 children.
The screen of 10,000 children identified 295 who might have ME/CFS, because they had fatigue or school/learning/memory problems, significantly reduced ability to function, and particular symptoms. They also didn’t have any illnesses such as multiple sclerosis that would rule out a diagnosis of ME/CFS.
In the second, diagnostic phase, researchers invited all 295 children and teenagers to attend a clinic in Chicago for a full medical evaluation. This involved questionnaires screening for psychological problems, measuring ME/CFS symptoms and assessing fatigue, as well as blood tests and a physical examination by Dr Ben Katz, one of the leading US children’s physicians specializing in ME/CFS.
A team of physicians made the final decision about who had ME/CFS after reviewing each patient’s information. To get a diagnosis, every patient also had to meet three case definitions (for the geeks: IOM, Fukuda and Canadian consensus criteria).
The researchers assessed 165 and concluded that 42 of them had ME/CFS. Only two of the 42 already had a diagnosis of the illness. The 42 cases computes to an ME/CFS prevalence of 0.75%.
Low response to telephone survey introduces uncertainty
A limitation of the study, mentioned by the authors in their paper, is the low response rate to the telephone screen. This is a general trend: people are increasingly unwilling to take part in telephone surveys. It is possible that the relatively small proportion of people who did take part are not a representative sample, and if that were the case it would affect the accuracy of the prevalence estimate.
Why the low response rate could be a problem (click to view)
Despite the problems of the low response rate, this NIH funded research uses a strong design and is the best study yet on prevalence in young people.
In fact, the findings of the new study are backed up by an earlier study run by Professor Esther Crawley. Her team used a slightly different approach, screening all children who had missed more than 20% of school in a six week period, and found a prevalence of 1%. Even allowing for differences in method between the two studies (discussed here), the results are pretty similar.
The relatively high rate of ME/CFS in young people found by the study equates to hundreds of thousands of people living with the illness. The vast majority of them probably have no diagnosis. ME/CFS is a serious condition, is the biggest cause of long-term school absence and takes a huge toll on young lives. We know next to nothing about the causes of ME/CFS and there are no effective treatments. Only serious levels of investment in research can put this right.
Image credits: Prof Jason, DePaul University; graphic by me with Pixabay clipart.
2 thoughts on “Leonard Jason research finds that many young people have ME/CFS”
ME/CFS is a grossly ignored condition for all age groups. There is an incredulous lack of funds for diagnosis, research, and treatment (if only for symptoms). Millions are left to struggle and suffer on their own and spend millions of dollars in search of some relief and hopefully, a cure. It is a metaphoric slap in our faces to see the time, attention, and money devoted to conditions that affect less serious conditions and a minuscule percentage of people. We are often ridiculed and offered specious advice. I do not know how to organize a group of ME/CFS sufferers to promote action when a large percentage of us can barely get out of bed, let alone lobby or attend rallies. While I appreciate the work of the small number of doctors, universities, and studies currently underway, we need a tidal wave of more informed and dedicated practitioners.
Maybe its because older people have got another diagnos Wien ME was not so common earlier?
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