Gulf war illness not in veterans' heads but in their mitochondria

Researchers at the UC San Diego School of Medicine have demonstrated for the first time that veterans of the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War who suffer from "Gulf War illness" have impaired function of mitochondria -- the energy powerhouses of cells.

The findings, published in the March 27, 2014 issue of PLOS ONE, could help lead to new treatments benefitting affected individuals -- and to new ways of protecting servicepersons (and civilians) from similar problems in the future, said principal investigator Beatrice A. Golomb MD, PhD, professor of medicine.
Golomb, with associate Hayley Koslik and Gavin Hamilton, PhD, a research scientist and magnetic resonance physicist, used the imaging technology to compare Gulf War veterans with diagnosed Gulf War illness to healthy controls. Cases were matched by age, sex and ethnicity.
The technique used -- 31-phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy or 31P-MRS -- reveals amounts of phosphorus-containing compounds in cells. Such compounds are important for cell energy production, in particular phosphocreatine or PCr, which declines in muscle cells during exercise. PCr recovery takes longer when mitochondrial function is impaired, and delayed recovery is recognized as a robust marker of mitochondrial dysfunction.
Affected Gulf War veterans displayed significantly delayed PCr recovery after an exercise challenge. In fact, said Golomb, there was almost no overlap in the recovery times of Gulf War illness veterans compared to controls: All but one control participant had a recovery time-constant clustered under 31 seconds. In contrast, all but one Gulf Illness veteran had a recovery time-constant exceeding 35 seconds, with times ranging as high as 70 seconds.
There were 14 participants in the study: seven Gulf War illness cases and seven matching controls. Golomb notes that the use of 1:1 matching markedly improves statistical "power," allowing a smaller sample size. The separation between the two groups was "visibly striking, and the large average difference was statistically significant," she said.
Golomb noted that impaired mitochondrial function accounts for numerous features of Gulf War illness, including symptoms that have been viewed as perplexing or paradoxical.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140327222210.htm

That is very interesting Didge. I wonder if it will mean that those servicemen in this country who have Gulf War Syndrome will now be able to prove it.

My Dad was on Christmas Island when they were testing nuclear bombs. Many of the people with him died from all kinds of rare cancers. He was lucky, he has a blood cancer called Polycythemia Vera, which they manage to keep under control and at 92 he's not complaining. But for years he had symptoms that he just put up with. I wonder how many servicemen out there do the same.

The ones in this country will not be listened to as prof Wessely has too much invested in gulf war syndrome, ME, and fibro being "somatic" illnesses. He is the official government contact and gets hundreds of thousands of pounds from the public purse to for research purposes. The second it is admitted any of these conditions have real physiological basis he looses money and position.

http://quackbengoldacre.wordpress.com/professorsimonwessely/

sphinx wrote:The ones in this country will not be listened to as prof Wessely has too much invested in gulf war syndrome, ME, and fibro being "somatic" illnesses.  He is the official government contact and gets hundreds of thousands of pounds from the public purse to for research purposes.  The second it is admitted any of these conditions have real physiological basis he looses money and position.

http://quackbengoldacre.wordpress.com/professorsimonwessely/

Lets hope he loses then. I know more work has to be done here and even one of the subjects did not fit the pattern, so more years of work is ahead to test and analyse the results further, but it is very promising from the start.