Supplements to Fight Chronic Fatigue

Javier Colomer 10 min. of reading Well Being Leave a comment

Chronic fatigue syndrome is a disorder characterized by extreme fatigue that isn’t linked to any disease. This fatigue can get worse with physical or mental activity, but doesn’t improve even after resting

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Causes

No single cause has been identified to explain the development of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

It’s likely that multiple factors promote its development

Several studies suggest the cause could be nutritional deficiencies, including: vitamin B, vitamin C, magnesium, zinc, L-tryptophan, L-carnitine, coenzyme Q10, and essential fatty acids.

Any of these nutrients might be deficient in patients suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, something that’s linked more to the disease process than to poor diets.

Taking supplements like the ones mentioned above can be a smart move to fight this condition

These deficiencies likely not only contribute to the syndrome’s clinical symptoms but can also be harmful to the healing process

Symptoms

Chronic fatigue syndrome is one of the most annoying disorders:

You feel tired doing any kind of task or activity, but no amount of rest helps

Usually, there are no abnormal blood tests or other biomarkers, so diagnosis isn’t easy at first glance.

Although recently the link between microbiota and psychological stress responses is clearer, any evidence supporting it should be considered given the limited solid science on the topic.

Among symptoms, gastrointestinal disorders are some of the most commonly reported by those affected

Vitamins and Minerals for Treating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Folic Acid

It’s been seen that patients with chronic fatigue syndrome have a folic acid deficiency. Serum folate is closely related to folate levels in cerebrospinal fluid.

Although the brain maintains adequate folate levels longer than most tissues, chronically low serum folic acid and thus a chronically low folic acid level in cerebrospinal fluid could reasonably suggest that brain folate might drop in chronic fatigue syndrome, causing impaired brain function.

Fatigue and depression, very common in chronic fatigue syndrome, are also consequences of folate deficiency

Also, several experimental studies found that folate supplementation effectively improves mood in people with folate deficiency.

Some studies didn’t find benefits with folate supplementation, but that might be because the dose was low and the study lasted only a week, while another study showed that higher folate doses improved fatigue after two or three months of treatment.

So, if folic acid supplementation works for chronic fatigue syndrome, higher doses over a longer period might be needed

Vitamin B12

Like folic acid, fatigue and depression are common in chronic fatigue syndrome, suggesting that inadequate or deficient vitamin B12 nutrition could contribute to symptoms in some patients.

Similar to folic acid, doses considered adequate to correct vitamin B12 deficiency might not be enough to treat chronic fatigue syndrome, since studies with higher doses have shown improvements.

Vitamin B12 also seems to have important pain-relieving properties.

Other B vitamins

Other B vitamins with evidence for treating chronic fatigue syndrome include riboflavin, thiamine, and pyridoxine. There’s also evidence that nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) supplementation can be beneficial

Vitamin C

More studies are needed on vitamin C for chronic fatigue syndrome. However, one study showed that taking 1 g of vitamin C three times a day reduced muscle soreness after intense exercise.

But this and other studies improving pain symptoms were done on healthy people, so it’s unknown if vitamin C’s pain-relieving effects extend to chronic fatigue syndrome patients.

Magnesium

Stress hormones, including catecholamines and corticosteroids, can lower magnesium levels in tissues.

Many symptoms and findings in chronic fatigue syndrome resemble those of magnesium deficiency

Several studies on magnesium nutrition in chronic fatigue syndrome have been published. Results are mixed, though two studies in major peer-reviewed journals found lower magnesium levels in chronic fatigue syndrome patients.

Magnesium deficiency seems common in people with chronic fatigue syndrome

For example, a reference center evaluating several hundred patients with this syndrome found that half had magnesium deficiency. Although literature is too limited for firm conclusions, many chronic fatigue syndrome patients with magnesium deficiency could benefit from magnesium supplementation.

Another study found that 40% of chronic fatigue syndrome patients showed improvement after starting supplementation

Zinc

Zinc is another mineral often deficient in chronic fatigue syndrome patients.

Zinc deficiency can cause immune suppression and muscle pain and fatigue. Also, changes in extracellular zinc levels affect muscle tension-contraction relationships.

Other Nutritional Factors

L-Tryptophan

Several studies found L-tryptophan was deficient in plasma of 80% of a group of chronic fatigue syndrome patients, a higher percentage than any other amino acid analyzed.

Tryptophan is the precursor of serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked to mood. For example, a low-tryptophan diet can cause relapse in people recovering from depression, and low tryptophan levels can rise when depression improves.

Tryptophan supplementation generally provides mild pain relief and may be effective for chronic pain patients with serotonin transmission disorders, which relate to good mood and pain perception

L-Carnitine

Due to its key role in muscle metabolism, carnitine deficiency can affect mitochondrial function. If so, it could cause widespread fatigue along with muscle pain, weakness, and discomfort after physical effort.

Current evidence suggests some chronic fatigue syndrome patients may have significant carnitine deficiency

Oral L-carnitine trials using up to 1 g three to four times a day have shown mixed results. This may be because only about a third of chronic fatigue syndrome patients respond to carnitine.

Among responders, some improve so much that even if initially fully disabled, they return to normal functioning and stay well if they keep taking the supplement. Unfortunately, baseline serum L-carnitine levels couldn’t predict who would respond.

Chronic fatigue syndrome patients also have low carnitine levels in mononuclear cells, so mononuclear cell carnitine might better predict response. And six grams daily could be a more effective dose

Coenzyme Q10

Since Coenzyme Q10 supports cellular respiration, and doctors believe it has therapeutic value, it’s long been prescribed to chronic fatigue syndrome patients.

Essential Fatty Acids

Low essential fatty acid levels seem common in chronic fatigue syndrome. This is linked to abnormalities in essential fatty acid metabolism.

One study found changes in essential fatty acid metabolite ratios, which happen as a normal physiological response to excessive or prolonged stress. These metabolite changes could cause dysfunctions in the immune, endocrine, and sympathetic nervous systems seen in chronic fatigue syndrome.

It’s very possible that essential fatty acid supplementation can improve blood abnormalities found in chronic fatigue syndrome. So, essential fatty acid supplementation is suggested as an effective treatment.

Another study found that individual symptoms, including fatigue, pain, and depression, improved significantly more in the group taking a fatty acid supplement than in the placebo group. Also, only the treated group’s plasma essential fatty acid levels rose to normal

Conclusions

Any of the nutrients mentioned above could be deficient in chronic fatigue syndrome patients, a finding that seems mainly due to the disease process rather than poor diets.

It’s also been observed that higher doses than daily recommendations are needed to see improvements in chronic fatigue syndrome.

Deficiencies likely not only contribute to clinical symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome but also harm healing processes

Therefore, whenever possible, they should be identified through objective tests and retested after starting treatment to monitor progress.

Also, due to few side effects and observed benefits from the nutritional supplements mentioned here, it seems a good strategy to complement treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome patients with these nutrients.

More research is needed in this area. Meanwhile, current data can be trusted to design the best possible therapeutic nutrition program for these patients

References

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