Source: New York Times
Date: January 29, 2008
Author: Eric Nagourney
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/research/29mala.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Maladies: Hormone Levels and Chronic Fatigue
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Attenuated Morning Salivary Cortisol Concentrations in a Population-based Study
of Persons with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Well Controls (The Journal of
Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism)
Women who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome may be starting the day at a
disadvantage. A new study finds that they wake up with lower levels of a hormone
that helps people deal with stress.
The researchers, writing online in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and
Metabolism, said the low levels of the hormone, cortisol, might play a role in
the severe fatigue found in many patients with the syndrome.
The findings are based on a comparison of cortisol levels in about 700
volunteers, some with the syndrome and some without, who agreed to take saliva
samples when they woke up, a half-hour later and again a half-hour after that.
It has long been believed that cortisol levels play a role in the syndrome, but
for this study researchers focused on taking samples from a broad segment of the
general population. They also made a point of having the samples taken on a
normal workday, said Dr. William C. Reeves of the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, an author of the study.
The cortisol differences were not found in the men studied.
'We were surprised that the effect was limited to women,' Dr. Reeves said
in an e-mail message, 'and this may help to explain the higher prevalence of
C.F.S. in women.'
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(c) 2008 New York Times
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The question is, chicken and the egg, do we have low cortisol because we already have CFS, or do we have CFS because we already had low cortisol? Given the number of patients who were Type A personalities handling stress quite well until they got a virus, I lean toward the virus causing some changes that result in lowered cortisol.
Nonetheless, objective proof that there's something physically wrong, and the test that my doctor refused to order when I asked for it. Cortisol levels are off in opposite directions with CFS and depression, so if he'd ordered the test, there would have been incontrovertible proof that his depression diagnosis was wrong, proof that he did not want to see.
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