In the past, our clinical experience is that about half of our CFS and fibromyalgia patients have a family member that also has the illness. This was shown to be the case in a recent study looking at this question. It seems fitting to me that this study should come out of Salt Lake City, which is a center of the Latter Day Saints (LDS/Mormon) community - which excels in the study of genealogy. In this study, a computerized genealogical resource linking as many as 15 generations of genealogy data with medical diagnosis data in a large Utah health care system was used. Comparing this to the expected rate of CFS, the researchers estimated the relative risk of developing CFS in first, second and third degree relatives of CFS cases.

This study suggests that autonomic dysfunction, especially as it relates to overdrive of our adrenaline or sympathetic nervous system, is an integral part of the fibromyalgia. As discussed in our writings over the last several decades, autonomic dysfunction is a routine part of CFS and fibromyalgia. The autonomic nervous system is controlled by the hypothalamic "circuit breaker" that is malfunctioning in these illnesses (because of the energy crisis), so this study comes as no surprise.

It is not only pain sensitivity that is altered in Fibromyalgia. This problem may occur with many kinds of sensation. These 2 new studies show that even how we handle sound is altered.

In this study, researchers measured the level of 20 amino acids (critical components of proteins). They found that overall levels of amino acids were lower in fibromyalgia and that seven amino acids were especially low, including taurine, alanine, tyrosine, valine, methionine, phenylalanine, and threonine. The pattern of amino acid deficiency was especially suggestive of a problem with the sympathetic (adrenaline) nervous system, which tends to be overactive and then exhausts in patients with CFS and fibromyalgia. Amino acids are critical for many functions, especially the production of key brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. I recommend supplementation with all of the amino acids as opposed to using a single one by itself, as these supplies overall nutritional support and are less likely to cause a relative deficiency of other amino acids.