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)

Substance P (SP), a putative nociceptive transmitter, is increased in the CSF of patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Because excitatory amino acids (EAAs) also appear to transmit pain, we hypothesized that CSF EAAs may be similarly involved in this syndrome. We found that the mean concentrations of most amino acids in the CSF did not differ amongst groups of subjects with primary FMS (PFMS), fibromyalgia associated with other conditions (SFMS), other painful conditions not exhibiting fibromyalgia (OTHER) or age-matched, healthy normal controls (HNC). However, in SFMS patients, individual measures of pain intensity, determined using an examination-based measure of pain intensity, the tender point index (TPI), covaried with their respective concentrations of glutamine and asparagine, metabolites of glutamate and aspartate, respectively. This suggests that re-uptake and biotransformation mask pain-related increases in EAAs. Individual concentrations of glycine and taurine also correlated with their respective TPI values in patients with PFMS. While taurine is affected by a variety of excitatory manipulations, glycine is an inhibitory transmitter as well as a positive modulator of the N-methyl-D-asparate (NMDA) receptor. In both PFMS and SFMS patients, TPI covaried with arginine, the precursor to nitric oxide (NO), whose concentrations, in turn, correlated with those of citrulline, a byproduct of NO synthesis. These events predict involvement of NO, a potent signaling molecule thought to be involved in pain processing. Together these metabolic changes that covary with the intensity of pain in patients with FMS may reflect increased EAA release and a positive modulation of NMDA receptors by glycine, perhaps resulting in enhanced synthesis of NO.
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PMID:Changes in the concentrations of amino acids in the cerebrospinal fluid that correlate with pain in patients with fibromyalgia: implications for nitric oxide pathways. 1092 13

This study reports an improved approach for the determination of neuropeptide levels in human cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The method is based on sample acidification followed by liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) combined with radioimmunoassay. It was applied to study the recovery and level of some opioid peptides (Met-enkephalin-Arg(6)-Phe(7) and Leu-enkephalin-Arg(6)), substance P and the substance P(1-7) fragment, which are all compounds known to be present in human CSF. The results indicated that the use of LLE highly improved the recovery of these peptides compared to current liquid-solid-phase extraction methods by using silica gel cartridges or mini-columns for ion-exchange chromatography. Peptides added to CSF in concentrations down to 10 fmol/ml were recovered in yields exceeding 80%. The mean recovery of synthetic peptides as recorded by radioimmunoassay in the LLE procedure was significantly improved when HCl was added to the sample. In contrast, when the (125)I-labeled analogues of the peptides were added to CSF samples, the mean recovery of the four labeled peptides using the LLE procedure was markedly reduced in acidified samples. We also found that the inclusion of HCl effectively improved the removal of proteins present in the samples. As an application the levels of substance P and Met-enkephalin-Arg(6)-Phe(7) in CSF samples from patients with chronic pain (fibromyalgia syndrome) were measured using the new procedure. It was possible to confirm a significant difference in the CSF levels of both peptides when comparing patients and controls.
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PMID:A high-recovery extraction procedure for quantitative analysis of substance P and opioid peptides in human cerebrospinal fluid. 1095 8

Decreased serum levels of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) are common in patients with fibromyalgia, which is frequently associated with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Twenty patients with CFS (7 men, 13 women; age range, 30-60 years) and age- and sex-matched controls were tested for peak GH responses to insulin-induced hypoglycaemia and arginine administration. Nocturnal secretion of GH and serum levels of IGF-I were also measured. Serum IGF-I SDS (+/- SD) was significantly lower in patients with CFS than in controls (SDS, -0.39 +/- 1.07 vs 0.33 +/- 0.84; P = 0.02). Patients with CFS also tended to have reduced nocturnal secretion of GH (area under the curve, 32.4 +/- 18.3 vs 62.7 +/- 43.7 microg/l/15 minutes; P= 0.06), but peak GH responses to insulin-induced hypoglycaemia and arginine administration did not differ significantly between the two groups. It is not clear whether the tendency for impaired spontaneous nocturnal GH secretion in patients with CFS is a cause or an effect of the condition.
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PMID:Secretion of growth hormone in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. 1099 Jan 47

Reportedly, fibromyalgia (FM) is frequently associated with reduced IGF-1 levels and GH hyporesponsiveness to different GH stimulation tests. Since there is a high prevalence of obesity in FM, and obesity itself is characterized by hyposomatotropism, the aim of this study was to assess IGF-1 levels and GH responsiveness in sixteen severely obese women suffering from FM, who, subdivided into two subgroups on the basis of their age-dependent IGF-1 values (> or <-2 SDS), underwent the combined GHRH plus arginine test. Four out of 16 obese women with FM (25%) had low IGF-1 SDS values, 2 cases of this subgroup (12.5%) failing also to normally respond to the test. Among patients with normal GH responses, 4 showed a delayed GH peak. The subgroup with low IGF-1 SDS values had higher BMI than that with normal IGF-1 SDS. GH peak and area under the curve were not correlated with CRP, ESR, or tender point score, while significant correlations were found with fat-free mass and fat mass. In conclusion, this study shows the existence of a high prevalence of GH-IGF-1 dysfunction in patients with both FM and obesity, presumably as a consequence of the obese rather than fibromyalgic condition.
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PMID:GH Responsiveness to Combined GH-Releasing Hormone and Arginine Administration in Obese Patients with Fibromyalgia Syndrome. 2874 9