Is This At the Root of Your Fatigue?
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is often described as relentless, disabling, and unexplained fatigue.
Because there is still no single test to confirm a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, your physician must rule out other disorders first.
Unexplained fatigue for six months or longer may result in a diagnosis of chronic fatigue. You can alleviate debilitating symptoms by healing a wounded inner ecosystem with help from glutamine found in Vitality SuperGreen, known to reduce chronic fatigue.
Recently, researchers from the Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan have been able to identify markers of inflammation in the brain associated with chronic fatigue.1
If you’re new to Body Ecology, we recommend starting with the BE101 Course first.
What Is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
You may receive a diagnosis for chronic fatigue syndrome if you have had unexplained fatigue for six months or more.
You must also have four of the following symptoms:
- Loss of memory or concentration
- Sore throat
- Enlarged lymph nodes in neck or armpits
- Unexplained muscle pain
- Pain that moves from one joint to another without swelling or redness
- Headache of a new type, pattern, or severity
- Waking from sleep and not feeling refreshed
- Extreme exhaustion more than 24 hours after physical or mental exercise
While scientists aren’t sure what causes chronic fatigue, many studies point to a relationship with inflammation.2
This inflammation may be in the brain. It may be systemic, whole-body inflammation. Or, the inflammation may happen in the gut. Often, we see all three.3
For example, in 2012 researchers found that patients with chronic fatigue syndrome had immune markers in their blood that mimicked irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) — or an inflamed gut. They were also more likely to feel tired, have flu-like symptoms, and feel sad or irritable.4
It’s Donna Gates’ mission to change the way the world eats. Read more of her articles on The Huffington Post.
When You Fight Inflammation, You Fight Chronic Fatigue
In addition to an inflamed gut (along with an inflamed body and an inflamed brain), there is also evidence that chronic fatigue syndrome is associated with changes in the inner ecosystem.
The inner ecosystem includes communities of microbes living within the digestive tract, mostly in the colon or large intestine.
Those with chronic fatigue syndrome have a wounded inner ecosystem.5 This means fewer good microbes and more microbes that inflame the lining of the gut.
Did you know that microbes living in the gut also influence levels of anxiety?6 Anxiety is one classic sign of chronic fatigue syndrome. Eating more probiotic foods or taking a probiotic supplement can help reduce fatigue in people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.7
At Body Ecology, we recommend eating fermented foods with every meal. This is because we know that the probiotics found in living foods are far more robust than those found in a probiotic supplement.
There are so many more fermented food options than you’ve been led to believe. You can find our tastiest Body Ecology recipes here.
Professor Michael Maes at the Clinical Research Center for Mental Health in Belgium shows that key nutrients like glutamine can seal a leaky and inflamed gut, which is associated with chronic fatigue syndrome.8
Glutamine, a core ingredient in Vitality SuperGreen, reduces the risk of leaky gut.9 Glutamine also keeps the gut barrier strong and intact when the body is inflamed.10
Professor Maes recommends using glutamine in conjunction with diet.
This is because diet directly shapes your inner ecosystem, feeding — or selecting — specific microbes. For example, foods filled with refined sugar will feed the yeast Candida. Your diet can also contain irritants that inflame the gut and “turn on” an immune response. Examples of common food irritants include wheat gluten and milk casein.
At Body Ecology, we recommend a diet that is:
- Filled with probiotic foods
- Free of gluten
- Free of casein
- Free of sugar
Addressing inflammation in the body is a crucial step in overcoming chronic fatigue.
What To Remember Most About This Article:
Chronic fatigue syndrome is a difficult condition to diagnose, characterized by unexplained, debilitating fatigue. A doctor will normally rule out a number of other health conditions first since there is no test to diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome. Chronic fatigue may come with other unpleasant symptoms, like memory loss, sore throat, muscle pain, headaches, and extreme exhaustion.
Though there is no known cause of chronic fatigue syndrome, researchers believe that the condition is related to inflammation. The inflammation may be found in the brain, throughout the body, in the gut, or as a combination of all three factors.
Repairing a wounded inner ecosystem is the most important step to alleviate chronic fatigue:
- Eat more probiotic foods known to reduce fatigue; enjoy fermented foods at every meal as a living source of probiotics.
- Take glutamine-rich Vitality SuperGreen to heal leaky gut.
- Clean up an inflammatory diet that can exacerbate chronic fatigue by cutting out gluten, casein, and sugar.
REFERENCES:
- Nakatomi, Yasuhito, et al. “Neuroinflammation in Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: An 11C-(R)-PK11195 PET Study.” Journal of Nuclear Medicine (2014): jnumed-113.
- Maes, Michael, et al. “Increased IgA responses to the LPS of commensal bacteria is associated with inflammation and activation of cell-mediated immunity in chronic fatigue syndrome.” Journal of affective disorders 136.3 (2012): 909-917.
- Fukuda, Keiji, et al. “The chronic fatigue syndrome: a comprehensive approach to its definition and study.” Annals of internal medicine 121.12 (1994): 953-959.
- Lakhan, Shaheen E., and Annette Kirchgessner. “Gut inflammation in chronic fatigue syndrome.” Nutr Metab (Lond) 7 (2010): 79.
- Logan, Alan C., A. Venket Rao, and Dinaz Irani. “Chronic fatigue syndrome: lactic acid bacteria may be of therapeutic value.” Medical hypotheses 60.6 (2003): 915-923.
- Goehler, Lisa E., Mark Lyte, and Ronald Gaykema. “Infection-induced viscerosensory signals from the gut enhance anxiety: implications for psychoneuroimmunology.” Brain, behavior, and immunity 21.6 (2007): 721-726.
- Sullivan, Asa, Carl E. Nord, and Birgitta Evengard. “Effect of supplement with lactic-acid producing bacteria on fatigue and physical activity in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.” Nutr J 8.4 (2009).
- Maes, Michael, and Jean-Claude Leunis. “Normalization of leaky gut in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is accompanied by a clinical improvement: effects of age, duration of illness and the translocation of LPS from gram-negative bacteria.” Neuroendocrinology Letters 29.6 (2008): 902.
- Quan, Zhu-Fu, et al. “Effect of glutamine on change in early postoperative intestinal permeability and its relation to systemic inflammatory response.” World Journal of Gastroenterology 10.13 (2004): 1992-1994.
- Clark, E. C., et al. “Glutamine deprivation facilitates tumour necrosis factor induced bacterial translocation in Caco-2 cells by depletion of enterocyte fuel substrate.” Gut 52.2 (2003): 224-230.