Chronic fatigue syndrome in patients with Lyme borreliosis

Several authors have reported a chronic fatigue-like syndrome in patients that have suffered from Lyme borreliosis in the past. To further investigate this suspicion of an association without sample bias, we carried out a prospective, double-blind study and tested 1, 156 healthy young males for Borrelia antibodies. Seropositive subjects who had never suffered from clinically manifest Lyme borreliosis or neuroborreliosis showed significantly more often chronic fatigue (p = 0.02) and malaise (p = 0.01) than seronegative recruits. Therefore we believe it is worth examining whether an antibiotic therapy should be considered in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and positive Borrelia serology.