“I suspect that chronic fatigue is one of a number of related auto-immune problems associated with either a *lack* of parasites, or a problem with the intestinal flora.”
CFIDS agrees with you that this is important. One of its six currently funded research areas has to do with determining whether CFS folks have abnormal “intestinal microbiota.”
This is discussed in the Feb 18 powerpoint presentation here:
http://www.cfids.org/webinar/series2010-past.asp#2
It is not unfair to say that we, as in humans, are more microbe than man. But the little we know of what this entails is very interesting indeed.
When infants are born, it is about two weeks before their immune system is operational, and it is during that time that they develop the flora that will remain with them for much of their lives.
The flora significantly improves how we digest our food, but it can also inhibit our digestion, and physical development. The majority of the microorganisms are viruses, and the majority of those are bacteriophages, that infect both the helpful and harmful bacteria in our bodies.
The majority of the bacteria, 99%, out of an enormous field of bacteria, is limited to only 30 or 40 species, each vying with the others for space. The multiple antibiotic resistance staphylococcus is often one of these, and only becomes a problem when we take antibiotics that inhibit its competitors. Then it has a population explosion, and we develop a dangerous infection.
The important point is that we didn’t “catch” it from somewhere else—it was just waiting for an opportunity.
Parasites are likewise interactive with our flora, sometimes needing chemical markers from the right kind of bacteria to signal their eggs that it is time to hatch, for example.
And from there it gets positively odd. More advanced microorganisms, such as protozoa, are known for being able to make neurological changes in the brains of the animals they infect.
The protozoa that causes toxoplasmosis in many mammals, including humans, modifies the brains of mice and rats to be attracted to the urine of cats. That is, the protozoa makes them suicidal, so they will be eaten by a cat, and spread the protozoa to the cat.
While this has a profound effect on the brain of rodents, as many as 11 million Americans are infected with this protozoa. And the brain of a rodent is not that different from the brain of a human, relatively speaking. So what would it look like if a protozoa took over a human brain?
Importantly, this sort of thing is not unique to that particular protozoa. Other microorganisms can have equally profound effects on the behavior of higher animals. Including humans.
But we know little or nothing about this potential, scientifically.
It gets better. Our bodies are not limited to viruses, bacteria, fungi and protozoa. We even have arthropods living on us. Parasitic mites that mostly live in our eyelashes, called Demodex. Even larger are the body lice and even ticks that may have a strong interaction with our immune system.