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Query: UMLS:C0015674 (chronic fatigue syndrome)
 2,978 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Sick building syndrome (SBS) is usually characterized by upper respiratory complaints, headache, and mild fatigue. Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is an illness with defined criteria including extreme fatigue, sore throat, headache, and neurological symptoms. We investigated three apparent outbreaks of SBS and observed another more serious illness (or illnesses), characterized predominantly by severe fatigue, that was noted by 9 (90%) of the 10 teachers who frequently used a single conference room at a high school in Truckee, California; 5 (23%) of the 22 responding teachers in the J wing of a high school in Elk Grove, California; and 9 (10%) of the 93 responding workers from an office building in Washington, D.C. In those individuals with severe fatigue, symptoms of mucous membrane irritation that are characteristic of SBS were noted but also noted were neurological complaints not typical of SBS but quite characteristic of CFS. We conclude that CFS is often associated with SBS.
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PMID:Concurrent sick building syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome: epidemic neuromyasthenia revisited. 814 52

An outbreak of chronic fatigue syndrome linked with sick building syndrome was recently described as a new association. Whether chronic fatigue syndrome acquired in this setting tends to remit or, as sporadic cases often do, persist, is unknown. To clarify the natural history of chronic fatigue syndrome in association with sick building syndrome the 23 individuals involved in the outbreak were interviewed four years after the onset. In the previous interview one year after the onset of symptoms, 15 (including 5 with chronic fatigue syndrome and 10 with idiopathic chronic fatigue) of the 23 noted fatigue. Three years later 10 of the 15 were "fatigue free" or "much improved". Five were only "some better", "the same", or "worse". Three of the five people previously diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome were "much improved" (two) or "fatigue free" (one). The remaining two were seriously impaired, homebound and unable to work. The 10 individuals with substantially improved fatigue (three of the five with chronic fatigue syndrome and seven of the 10 with idiopathic chronic fatigue) were more likely to have noted improvement in nasal and sinus symptoms, sore throats, headaches, and tender cervical lymph nodes when compared to those with a lingering significant fatigue (p < 0.001). Upper respiratory symptoms and headaches improved in those with reduced fatigue but remained problematic in those with persisting significant fatigue. We conclude that the fatigue related to sick building syndrome, including chronic fatigue syndrome, is significantly more likely to improve than fatigue identified in sporadic cases of chronic fatigue syndrome.
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PMID:The natural history of concurrent sick building syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome. 920 47

Chemical sensitivity Syndromes refers to aggregations of symptoms marked by largely subjective neurobehavioral complaints and hypothesized links to immune system dysfunction. The entities reviewed here consist of the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome, the Sick Building Syndrome, the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and the Gulf War Syndrome. Except for the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, toxic chemical exposures are accorded a significant role in their etiology. The connections are ambiguous because of the variety of chemical agents cited and, for the most part, the relatively low levels at which exposures occur. Conventional clinical signs are also typically lacking. Explanatory mechanisms include psychiatric diagnoses such as somatization, behavioral mechanisms such as conditioning and generalization, neuropharmacological mechanisms such as sensitization, and psychoneuroimmunological mechanisms such as those involving the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Laboratory animal experimentation and controlled clinical trials, especially with inhaled material, provide the means for exploring the proffered explanations.
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PMID:Neurobehavioral properties of chemical sensitivity syndromes. 955 63

This study (ntotal = 35) compared early life stress ratings, parental relationships, and health status, notably orthostatic blood pressures, of middle-aged women with low-level chemical intolerance (CI group) and depression, depressives without CI (DEP group), and normals. Environmental chemical intolerance is a symptom of several controversial conditions in which women are overrepresented, that is, sick building syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia. Previous investigators have postulated that people with CI have variants of somatization disorder, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) initiated by childhood abuse or a toxic exposure event. One neurobehavioral model for CI, somatization disorder, recurrent depression, and PTSD is neural sensitization, that is, the progressive amplification of host responses (e.g., behavioral, neurochemical) to repeated intermittent stimuli (e.g., drugs, chemicals, endogenous mediators, stressors). Females are more vulnerable to sensitization than are males. Limbic and mesolimbic pathways mediate central nervous system sensitization. Although both CI and DEP groups had high levels of life stress and past abuse, the CI group had the most distant and weak paternal relationships and highest limbic somatic dysfunction subscale scores. Only the CI group showed sensitization of sitting blood pressures over sessions. Together with prior evidence, these data are consistent with a neural sensitization model for CI in certain women. The findings may have implications for poorer long-term medical as well as neuropsychiatric health outcomes of a subset of women with CI. Subsequent research should test this model in specific clinical diagnostic groups with CI.
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PMID:Early life stress, negative paternal relationships, and chemical intolerance in middle-aged women: support for a neural sensitization model. 986 91

This review starts with a clinical description of the most common unspecific environmental diseases, such as Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS), Idiopathic Environmental Intolerances (IEI) and Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). These syndromes are very controversial discussed between scientific medicine and "clinical ecology". In addition, they have fundamental similarities to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and Fibromyalgia. Finally the spectrum of therapeutic approaches is discussed.
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PMID:[The non-specific environmental syndromes MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity), IEI (Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance) and SBS (Sick Building Syndrome)]. 988 60

The term functional somatic syndrome has been applied to several related syndromes characterized more by symptoms, suffering, and disability than by consistently demonstrable tissue abnormality. These syndromes include multiple chemical sensitivity, the sick building syndrome, repetition stress injury, the side effects of silicone breast implants, the Gulf War syndrome, chronic whiplash, the chronic fatigue syndrome, the irritable bowel syndrome, and fibromyalgia. Patients with functional somatic syndromes have explicit and highly elaborated self-diagnoses, and their symptoms are often refractory to reassurance, explanation, and standard treatment of symptoms. They share similar phenomenologies, high rates of co-occurrence, similar epidemiologic characteristics, and higher-than-expected prevalences of psychiatric comorbidity. Although discrete pathophysiologic causes may ultimately be found in some patients with functional somatic syndromes, the suffering of these patients is exacerbated by a self-perpetuating, self-validating cycle in which common, endemic, somatic symptoms are incorrectly attributed to serious abnormality, reinforcing the patient's belief that he or she has a serious disease. Four psychosocial factors propel this cycle of symptom amplification: the belief that one has a serious disease; the expectation that one's condition is likely to worsen; the "sick role," including the effects of litigation and compensation; and the alarming portrayal of the condition as catastrophic and disabling. The climate surrounding functional somatic syndromes includes sensationalized media coverage, profound suspicion of medical expertise and physicians, the mobilization of parties with a vested self-interest in the status of functional somatic syndromes, litigation, and a clinical approach that overemphasizes the biomedical and ignores psychosocial factors. All of these influences exacerbate and perpetuate the somatic distress of patients with functional somatic syndromes, heighten their fears and pessimistic expectations, prolong their disability, and reinforce their sick role. A six-step strategy for helping patients with functional somatic syndromes is presented here.
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PMID:Functional somatic syndromes. 1068 Dec 98

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a clinical entity characterized by severe fatigue lasting more than 6 months and other well-defined symptoms. Even though in most CFS cases the etiology is still unknown, sometimes the mode of presentation of the illness implicates the exposure to chemical and/or food toxins as precipitating factors: ciguatera poisoning, sick building syndrome, Gulf War syndrome, exposure to organochlorine pesticides, etc. In the National Reference Center for CFS Study at the Department of Infectious Diseases of 'G. D'Annunzio' University (Chieti) we examined five patients (three females and two males, mean age: 37.5 years) who developed the clinical features of CFS several months after the exposure to environmental toxic factors: ciguatera poisoning in two cases, and exposure to solvents in the other three cases. These patients were compared and contrasted with two sex- and age-matched subgroups of CFS patients without any history of exposure to toxins: the first subgroup consisted of patients with CFS onset following an EBV infection (post-infectious CFS), and the second of patients with a concurrent diagnosis of major depression. All subjects were investigated by clinical examination, neurophysiological and immunologic studies, and neuroendocrine tests. Patients exposed to toxic factors had disturbances of hypothalamic function similar to those in controls and, above all, showed more severe dysfunction of the immune system with an abnormal CD4/CD8 ratio, and in three of such cases with decreased levels of NK cells (CD56+). These findings may help in understanding the pathogenetic mechanisms involved in CFS.
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PMID:Chronic fatigue syndrome following a toxic exposure. 1132 94

Concerning the syndromes in environmental medicine, like Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS), Idiopathic Environmental Intolerances (IEI), Sick Building Syndrome (SBS), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Candida Syndrome (CS), and Burnout Syndrome (BS), scientific knowledge in etiology, pathology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, therapy, prevention and prognosis is still lacking until now. A critical comparison shows that it is still impossible to find a scientifically satisfying delimitation. Syndromes in environmental medicine show clinical similarities to somatoform disorders. Furthermore, there are the following possible explanations for the existence of these syndromes: Firstly, they may be a complex interaction of environmental impacts, individual predispositions, psychological influences, as well as processes of mental perception and interpretation. Secondly, they may be an effect of distress influenced by culture and social structures and/or thirdly, they may be an latrogenic determination. A more comprehensive characterisation which better considers the complex clinical manifestations is overdue. Although there are neither scientifically validated procedures for diagnosis or therapy nor prophylactic measures, a hardly comprehensible number of partly unvalidated methods is in practical use. Until the syndromes are not finally defined the terms for the syndromes should not be applied to a certain disease. Despite all uncertainities in the evaluation of syndromes in environmental medicine, physicians have the duty to take the affected persons' problems seriously.
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PMID:[Syndromes in environmental medicine: variants of somatoform disorders]. 1138 23

Psychosomatic illness as "modern diseases" are of increasing interest to the public. Environmental illnesses, for example assumed intoxication with organic solvents, multiple chemical sensitivity, sick building syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, the influence of amalgam or of electromagnetic waves and ozone are often causes of anxiety. There are many hypotheses about the origin of these diseases. Some scientists emphasize an organic basis; however, this is not generally accepted. Very often with good reason a psychological cause is supposed. Objective diagnostic criteria are not available, therefore these diagnoses may only be applied after sufficient exclusion of other known organic diseases. Mostly a psychological treatment is refused by the person affected, and a scientifically based somatic concept for the therapy does not exist. The medicolegal problems are important and often the reason for prolonged forensic confrontations.
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PMID:[Modern illnesses from the critical viewpoint]. 1224 79

This monograph of peer-reviewed articles is based on presentations at the conference "Environmental Factors in Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms and Related Syndromes" held 10-12 January 2001 in Piscataway, New Jersey, USA. The purpose of the conference was to determine research priorities for elucidating the role of environmental factors in medically unexplained symptoms and symptom syndromes. These include conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivities, sick building syndrome, Gulf War illness, and the like. Approximately 1 1/2 days were devoted to plenary talks and 1 day was devoted to break-out sessions to discuss epidemiologic, psychosocial, and experimental research. Recommendations were made for a series of epidemiologic, psychosocial, and experimental research approaches, with acknowledgment that nosology issues are clearly fundamental to advancing understanding of these conditions.
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PMID:The role of environmental factors in medically unexplained symptoms and related syndromes: conference summary and recommendations. 1219 91


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