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No Causal Effects Detected in COVID-19 and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Two Sample Mendelian Randomization Study

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  • Wangzi Xu

    (School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361000, China
    Department of Clinical Laboratory, Xiang’an Hospital of Xiamen University, School of Medicine, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361000, China
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Yu Cao

    (School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361000, China
    Department of Clinical Laboratory, Xiang’an Hospital of Xiamen University, School of Medicine, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361000, China
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Lin Wu

    (Department of Clinical Laboratory, Xiang’an Hospital of Xiamen University, School of Medicine, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361000, China)

Abstract

New clinical observational studies suggest that Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a sequela of COVID-19 infection, but whether there is an exact causal relationship between COVID-19 and ME/CFS remains to be verified. To investigate whether infection with COVID-19 actually causes ME/CFS, this paper obtained pooled data from the Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) and analyzed the relationship between COVID susceptibility, hospitalization and severity of COVID and ME/CFS, respectively, using two-sample Mendelian randomization (TSMR). TSMR analysis was performed by inverse variance weighting (IVW), weighted median method, MR-Egger regression and weighted mode and simple mode methods, respectively, and then the causal relationship between COVID-19 and ME/CFS was further evaluated by odds ratio (OR). Eventually, we found that COVID-19 severity, hospitalization and susceptibility were all not significantly correlated with ME/CFS (OR:1.000,1.000,1.000; 95% CI:0.999–1.000, 0.999–1.001, 0.998–1.002; p = 0.333, 0.862, 0.998, respectively). We found the results to be reliable after sensitivity analysis. These results suggested that SARS-CoV-2 infection may not significantly contribute to the elevated risk of developing CFS, and therefore ME/CFS may not be a sequela of COVID-19, but may simply present with symptoms similar to those of CFS after COVID-19 infection, and thus should be judged and differentiated by physicians when diagnosing and treating the disease in clinical practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Wangzi Xu & Yu Cao & Lin Wu, 2023. "No Causal Effects Detected in COVID-19 and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Two Sample Mendelian Randomization Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-13, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:3:p:2437-:d:1051032
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    References listed on IDEAS

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