Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0016053 (fibromyalgia)
 4,687 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Thyroid function was tested in 13 female patients with primary fibromyalgia syndrome (FS) and 10 healthy age matched controls by intravenous injection of 400 micrograms thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH). Basal thyroid hormone levels of both groups were in the normal range. However, patients with primary FS responded with a significantly lower secretion of thyrotropin and thyroid hormones to TRH, within an observation period of 2 h, and reacted with a significantly higher increase of prolactin. Total and free serum calcium and calcitonin levels were significantly lower in patients with primary FS, while both groups exhibited parathyroid hormone levels in the normal range.
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PMID:Thyroid function in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome. 151 69

This study was designed to determine the prevalence and clinical significance of hyperprolactinemia in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and other rheumatic diseases. Basal levels of prolactin were determined in 130 nonselected sera from patients with rheumatic diseases including 45 with SLE, 31 with rheumatoid arthritis, 23 with osteoarthritis, 18 with fibromyalgia, and 13 with polymyalgia rheumatica. Serum samples of 28 healthy subjects were used as normal controls. Serum prolactin was measured by radioimmunoassay. ANA, anti-DNA, RNP, Sm, Ro, La, and anticardiolipin antibodies were determined by standard techniques. Elevated serum levels of prolactin (PRL greater than 20 ng/ml) were found in a subset of SLE patients. In addition, a direct correlation with clinical disease and serological (ANA) activity was also found. These findings suggest a potential role for this immunoregulatory hormone in SLE pathogenesis.
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PMID:Hyperprolactinemia in systemic lupus erythematosus: association with disease activity. 156 38

Cells of the immune system synthesize prolactin and express mRNA and receptors for that hormone. Interleukin 1, interleukin 6, gamma interferon, tumor necrosis factor, platelet activator factor, and substance P participate in the release of prolactin. This hormone is involved in the pathogenesis of adjuvant arthritis and restores immunocompetence in experimental models. In vitro studies suggest that lymphocytes are an important target tissue for circulating prolactin. Prolactin antibodies inhibit lymphocyte proliferation. Prolactin is comitogenic with concanavalin A and induces interleukin 2 receptors on the surface of lymphocytes. Prolactin stimulates ornithine decarboxylase and activates protein kinase C, which are pivotal enzymes in the differentiation, proliferation, and function of lymphocytes. Cyclosporine A interferes with prolactin binding to its receptors on lymphocytes. Hyperprolactinemia has been found in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, and low back pain patients present a hyperprolactinemic response to thyrotropin-releasing hormone. Experimental autoimmune uveitis, as well as patients with uveitis whether or not associated with spondyloarthropathies, and patients with psoriatic arthritis may respond to bromocriptine treatment. Suppression of circulating prolactin by bromocriptine appears to improve the immunosuppressive effect of cyclosporine A with significantly less toxicity. Prolactin may also be a new marker of rejection in heart-transplant patients. This body of evidence may have an impact in the study of rheumatic disorders, especially connective tissue diseases. A role for prolactin in autoimmune diseases remains to be demonstrated.
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PMID:Prolactin, immunoregulation, and autoimmune diseases. 206 74

Twenty patients with fibromyalgia syndrome and 20 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were assessed as outpatients over a 3 day period with respect to peak and trough levels of plasma cortisol, growth hormone, prolactin, ACTH and thyroid stimulating hormone. Patients with fibromyalgia syndrome had loss of diurnal variation in plasma cortisol (trough levels 347.3 +/- 254.7 vs 232.8 +/- 70.0 nmol/l, p less than 0.001) compared with RA patients. Thirty-five percent (7/20) of patients with fibromyalgia syndrome and only 5 percent (1/20) of those with RA exhibited abnormal dexamethasone suppression tests (p less than 0.001). No differences were noted in the diurnal variation of other hormones tested. Beck Depression Inventory scores were similar in both groups and no patient exhibited clinical evidence of depression. These data suggest alteration in the pituitary hypothalamic axis with respect to cortisol secretion in fibromyalgia syndrome, perhaps as a consequence of chronic pain.
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PMID:Diurnal hormone variation in fibromyalgia syndrome: a comparison with rheumatoid arthritis. 260 9

Different changes in neurotransmitters were observed in patients with fibromyalgia. The aim of the study was to confirm the diagnosis fibromyalgia by determination of several of these substances. In 60 patients, who met the ACR classification criteria for fibromyalgia and in 20 sex and age matched controls the following estimations were made: serotonin (EIA), somatomedin C (RIA), calcitonin (RIA), prostaglandin E2 (EIA), oxytocin (RIA), ACTH (RIA), substance P (EIA), TSH (LIA), prolactin (LIA). In comparison to healthy controls, patients with fibromyalgia revealed significantly decreased levels of serotonin, somatomedin C, calcitonin, prostaglandin E2 and a significantly increased level of prolactin. No significant differences were found in the levels of ACTH, substance P and TSH. These results suggest that the diagnosis of fibromyalgia can be confirmed by various biochemical parameters, but further investigations must be carried out to value the diagnostic relevance of these findings.
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PMID:[Biochemical changes in fibromyalgia]. 876 46

In the second part of their article on the emerging field of neuroimmunology, the authors present an overview of the role of neuroimmune mechanisms in defence against infectious diseases and in immune disorders. During acute febrile illness, immune-derived cytokines initiate an acute phase response, which is characterized by fever, inactivity, fatigue, anorexia and catabolism. Profound neuroendocrine and metabolic changes take place: acute phase proteins are produced in the liver, bone marrow function and the metabolic activity of leukocytes are greatly increased, and specific immune reactivity is suppressed. Defects in regulatory processes, which are fundamental to immune disorders and inflammatory diseases, may lie in the immune system, the neuro endocrine system or both. Defects in the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis have been observed in autoimmune and rheumatic diseases, chronic inflammatory disease, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. Prolactin levels are often elevated in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and other autoimmune diseases, whereas the bioactivity of prolactin is decreased in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Levels of sex hormones and thyroid hormone are decreased during severe inflammatory disease. Defective neural regulation of inflammation likely plays a pathogenic role in allergy and asthma, in the symmetrical form of rheumatoid arthritis and in gastrointestinal inflammatory disease. A better understanding of neuroimmunoregulation holds the promise of new approaches to the treatment of immune and inflammatory diseases with the use of hormones, neurotransmitters, neuropeptides and drugs that modulate these newly recognized immune regulators.
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PMID:Neuroimmune mechanisms in health and disease: 2. Disease. 887 36

After elucidating the components and theory of neuroticism (N) as well as of psychosomatic complaints and their relationships to personality dimensions and to psychosomatic diseases, comparisons are performed between patients suffering from fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) or related pain diseases with healthy subjects scoring high on personality dimensions related to neuroticism. FMS and pain patients score high on depression, anxiety, and experience of stress although questionnaire scores on depression are higher in subjects not exhibiting somatic features of the disease. High subjective pain sensitivity and low thresholds for pain perception are also common features in high N subjects and FMS patients. On the endocrinological level cortisol responses to challenge tests with CRH as well as prolactin responses to TRH are higher in FMS patients than in high N healthy subjects indicating an endocrinological difference. A common feature, however, is the lack of adaptability in the two groups, since neurotics are in particular characterized by a low capacity to shift their behavior from one state to the other (waking-sleeping, working-relaxing), to re-adapt to baseline levels after endocrinological or physiological stress responses, or to adjust to conditions of shift work. This is reflected by chronobiological disturbances in FMS patients and could also explain their maintainance of pain perception, because they are incapable of correcting conditioned pain-producing muscle tension.
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PMID:The fibromyalgia syndrome as a manifestation of neuroticism? 1002 96

The symptomatology of the fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) often resembles an alteration in central nervous set points at least in three systems. The patients suffer under chronic pain in the region of the locomotor system, presumably reflecting a disturbed central processing of pain. Anxiety and depression often characterizes the clinical picture. Almost all of the hormonal feedback mechanisms controlled by the hypothalamus are altered. Characteristic for FMS patients are the elevated basal values of ACTH, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), and cortisol as well as lowered basal values of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1, somatomedin C), free triiodothyronine (FT3), and oestrogen. In FMS patients, the systemic administration of the relevant releasing hormones of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH), thyreotropin-releasing hormone (TRH), and luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) leads to increased secretion of ACTH and prolactin, whereas the degree to which TSH can be stimulated is reduced. The stimulation of the hypophysis with LHRH in female FMS patients during their follicular phase results in a significantly reduced LH response. All in all, the typical alterations in set points of hormonal regulation that are typical for FMS patients can be explained as a primary stress activation of hypothalamic CRH neurons caused by the chronic pain. In addition to the stimulation of pituitary ACTH secretion, CRH activates somatostatin on the hypothalamic level, which in turn inhibits the release of GH and TSH on the hypophyseal level. The lowered oestrogen levels could be accounted for both via an inhibitory effect of the CRH on the hypothalamic release of LHRH or via a direct CRH-mediated inhibition of the FSH-stimulated oestrogen production in the ovary. Serotonin (5HT), precursors like tryptophan (5HTP), drugs which release 5HT or act directly on 5HT receptors stimulate HPA axis, indicating a stimulatory serotonergic influence on HPA axis function. Therefore activation of the HPA axis may reflect an elevated serotonergic tonus in the central nervous system of FMS patients.
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PMID:Neuroendocrine and hormonal perturbations and relations to the serotonergic system in fibromyalgia patients. 1102 24

Twenty patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) and 20 matched healthy controls were subjected to an exercise stress test above their anaerobic threshold. Serum samples for the measurement of growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), prolactin (PRL), adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol were taken prior to and after the test at 30-min intervals. Compared to the controls, the patients with FMS displayed significantly lower basal GH levels and slightly, though significantly, higher prolactin levels. Following the exercise test there was a significant increase in the mean GH level in the patient group (P = 0.0474) and a significant decrease in the control group (P = 0.0286) 1 hour after the exercise. A slight decrease in ACTH levels in the control group was observed (P = 0.0002), but there was no significant change in FMS patients. Cortisol levels were significantly lower in both groups after the exercise (P = 0.0001). These results suggest the possibility of a perturbation in hormonal response to exercise in patients with FMS.
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PMID:Hormonal responses to exercise stress test in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome. 1177 22

Fibromyalgia-like symptoms such as muscle pain and tenderness, exhaustion, reduced exercise capacity, and cold intolerance, resemble symptoms associated with endocrine dysfunction like hypothyroidism, and adrenal or growth hormone insufficiency. To investigate the potential of management of endocrine abnormalities for relieve of symptoms of patients with fibromyalgia, we reviewed experimental and clinical studies of endocrine functioning and endocrine treatment. Serum GH, androgen, and 24-hour urinary cortisol levels of patients with fibromyalgia tend to be in the lower part of the normal range, while serum levels of thyroid hormone, female sex hormones, prolactin, and melatonin are normal. With exception of GH, these conclusions are based on studies in small samples. With respect to dynamic responsiveness of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the dexamethasone suppression test and stimulation with ACTH show normal results, while patients show marked ACTH hypersecretion in response to severe acute stressors, perhaps indicative of chronic CRH hyposecretion. This finding and slightly altered responsiveness of growth hormone, thyroid hormone, and prolactin in pharmacologic stimulation tests suggest a central rather than peripheral origin of endocrine deviations. Because hormone level deviations were not severe, occurred in subgroups of patients only, and few controlled clinical trials were performed, there is--unless future research shows otherwise--little support for hormone supplementation as a general therapy in the common patient with fibromyalgia. In patients with clinically overt hormone deficiency, hormonal supplementation is an option. In patients with hormone levels that are in the lower part of the normal range, interventions aimed at pain, fatigue, sleep or mood disturbance, and physical deconditioning may indirectly improve endocrine functioning.
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PMID:Evaluation and management of endocrine dysfunction in fibromyalgia. 1212 26


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