Gulf War Syndrome Veterans Have Damage in Specific Portion of Nervous System

[thedrifter]

Gulf War Syndrome Veterans Have Damage in Specific Portion of Nervous System

Libraries
Medical News Keywords
GULF WAR SYNDROME ROBERT HALEY PARASYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM GALLBLADDER DISEASE UNREFRESHING SLEEP DEPRESSION JOINT PAIN CHRONIC DIARRHEA SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION EPIDEMIOLOGY
Contact Information

Available for logged-in reporters only
Description

UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researchers have uncovered damage in a specific, primitive portion of the nervous systems of veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome.


Newswise — UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researchers have uncovered damage in a specific, primitive portion of the nervous systems of veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome.

UT Southwestern researchers report that damage to the parasympathetic nervous system may account for nearly half of the typical symptoms – including gallbladder disease, unrefreshing sleep, depression, joint pain, chronic diarrhea and sexual dysfunction – that afflict those with Gulf War syndrome. Their findings will be published in the October issue of the American Journal of Medicine and are currently available online.

"The high rate of gallbladder disease in these men, reported in a previous study, is particularly disturbing because typically women over 40 get this. It's singularly rare in young men," said Dr. Robert Haley, chief of epidemiology at UT Southwestern and lead author of the new study.

The parasympathetic system regulates primitive, automatic bodily functions such as digestion and sleep, while the sympathetic nervous system controls the "fight or flight" instinct.

"They're sort of the mirror image of each other – the yin and the yang of the nervous system – that control functions we are not usually aware of. This is another part of the explanation as to why Gulf War syndrome is so elusive and mysterious," said Dr. Haley.

Previously, isolating pure parasympathetic brain function was difficult. In the new study Dr. Haley and his colleagues used a technique that monitors changes in approximately 100,000 heartbeats over 24 hours and measures changes in high-frequency heart rate variability – a function solely regulated by the parasympathetic nervous system.

After plotting the subtle changes in heart function using a mathematical technique called spectral analysis, researchers found that parasympathetic brain function, which usually peaks during sleep, barely changed in veterans with Gulf War syndrome even though they appeared to be sleeping. In a group of well veterans tested for comparison, the brain functions increased normally.

"The parasympathetic nervous system takes care of restorative functions of the body. During sleep it's orchestrating that process, which is why we feel refreshed when we wake up," Dr. Haley said. "Its failure to increase at night in ill Gulf War veterans may explain their unrefreshing sleep."

The tests were conducted on 40 members of a Naval Reserve construction battalion, also known as Seabees. Both ill and healthy veterans from the same battalion were tested for comparison.

In addition, pure sympathetic nervous system functions were tested. In these tests, there were no appreciable differences between the two groups of veterans.

Dr. Haley first described Gulf War syndrome in a series of papers published in January 1997 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In previous studies, Dr. Haley and his colleagues presented evidence attributing the veterans' illness to low-level exposure to sarin gas – a potent nerve toxin – which drifted over thousands of soldiers when U.S. forces detonated Iraqi chemical stores during and after the Gulf War. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office confirmed that exposure to low-level sarin in the 1991 Gulf War was more frequent and widespread than previously acknowledged.

Subsequent research from Dr. Haley's group showed that veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome also were born with lower levels of a protective blood enzyme called paraoxonase, which usually fights off the toxins found in sarin. Veterans who were in the same area and did not get sick had higher levels of this enzyme.

Dr. Haley and his colleagues have closely followed the same group of tests subjects since 1995. A new grant from the U.S. Department of Defense will allow Dr. Haley's team to undertake a study in a much larger sample of Gulf War veterans.

Other UT Southwestern researchers involved in the latest study include Drs. Wanpen Vongpatanasin, assistant professor of internal medicine; Gil Wolfe, associate professor of neurology; and Ronald Victor, chief of hypertension. Former UT Southwestern faculty members Drs. Wilson Bryan, Roseanne Armitage, Robert Hoffmann, Frederick Petty, and W. Wesley Marshall also contributed to this study, as did researchers from Phase 5 Sciences and Laboratory Industry Services, both in California.

The research was supported by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, the U.S. Public Health Service and the Perot Foundation.

A picture to go with this release can be downloaded at:
http://www3.utsouthwestern.edu/home_pages/news/haley.jpg

The cutline reads:
New findings by Dr. Robert Haley, chief of epidemiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, reveal damage to the parasympathetic nervous systems of veterans of the 1991 Gulf War. Dr. Haley led the study published in the Oct. 1 edition of the American Journal of Medicine.

© 2004 Newswise. All Rights Reserved.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Scientist: Gulf War Illness May Never Be Explained

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - Veterans of the Gulf War (news - web sites) suffer more health problems than other members of the military but the causes of the mysterious array of symptoms may never be known, a leading British scientist said on Monday.


Men and women who served in the 1990-1991 war are 20 percent more likely to suffer from headaches, fatigue and pain but do not have a higher rate of cancer or heart disease.


"There is no shadow of a doubt that something has happened, something has gone wrong," Professor Simon Wessely, of King's College London, told a news briefing.


But the head of the Gulf War research unit at the college said the increase in ill health is unlikely to be a new disease or have a single cause.


"There are huge areas that remain unclear and I am afraid I suspect they will always remain unclear," he added.


Multiple vaccinations, exposure to pesticides, smoke from oil-burning fires, stress and organophosphates, chemicals that have been shown to affect the human nervous system, have been cited as possible causes of the illness.


Professor Mark Peakman, an immunologist at Guy's, King's & St Thomas' School of Medicine in London, said the human immune system is more than capable of dealing with multiple vaccinations given in a short period of time.


Although vaccinations can cause local reactions, there is no evidence so far linking them with the symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome (news - web sites).


Professor David Ray of Nottingham University doubted that exposure to dangerous chemicals in pesticides or insecticides was the culprit.


"It doesn't look like a pattern of chemical poisoning," Ray said.


Wessely and his colleagues spoke to journalists ahead of the release of an independent British inquiry into the illness and a day after a draft U.S. report by a group of doctors and veterans said exposure to neurotoxins explains the symptoms better than stress or psychiatric illness.


The British scientists said they could not comment on the U.S. report without seeing it.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1896&ncid=1896&e=2&u=/nm/20041018/us_nm/health_gulfwar_dc_2

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Chemicals Sickened '91 Gulf War Veterans, Latest Study Finds
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By SCOTT SHANE
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 - A federal panel of medical experts studying illnesses among veterans of the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf has broken with several earlier studies and concluded that many suffer from neurological damage caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, rejecting past findings that the ailments resulted mostly from wartime stress.

Citing new scientific research on the effects of exposure to low levels of neurotoxins, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses concludes in its draft report that "a substantial proportion of Gulf War veterans are ill with multisymptom conditions not explained by wartime stress or psychiatric illness."

It says a growing body of research suggests that many veterans' symptoms have a neurological cause and that there is a "probable link" to exposure to neurotoxins.

The report says possible sources include sarin, a nerve gas, from an Iraqi weapons depot blown up by American forces in 1991; a drug, pyridostigmine bromide, given to troops to protect against nerve gas; and pesticides used to protect soldiers in the region.

Dr. Joyce C. Lashof , the chairwoman of a presidential advisory group that reported in 1996 that there was no causal link between toxic exposure and the veterans' symptoms, said Thursday that she had not seen the new report. But Dr. Lashof said she was open to changing her views if the findings were based on solid new research and not advocacy by veterans' groups.

"We certainly weren't sure that our report was the definitive answer," Dr. Lashof, professor emerita of public health at the University of California at Berkeley, said. "It was based on the best evidence available at the time."

All the chemicals cited in the new study belong to a group called acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, which can cause a range of symptoms including pain, fatigue, diarrhea and cognitive impairment. Committee members said there might be minor changes in the report, a draft copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, but that the basic scientific findings would not change.

The committee says a search for medical treatments tailored to the new findings are "urgently needed" and recommends $60 million in federal funds for new research over the next four years. It says an estimated 100,000 Gulf War veterans, or about one in seven, suffer war-related health problems.

The report also says that understanding illnesses from the war will be critical in planning future military deployments and measures to improve domestic security. It calls for a reassessment of the use of pyridostigmine bromide.

Though some conclusions are hedged in careful language in the 135-page draft report, committee members said in interviews that they were consciously departing from the past scientific consensus and taking a strong stand on a politically and scientifically volatile subject.

"I would absolutely say it's a break from previous panels," said Dr. Beatrice A. Golomb, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California at San Diego, a member of the panel and its scientific director for much of its existence. "It reflects a different body of evidence, because more studies have come out. No one had gone to the scientific evidence on acetylcholinesterase inhibitors."

The new report, prepared for the federal Department of Veterans Affairs, draws conclusions that are essentially the opposite of those of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, led by Dr. Lashof. That group reported to President Bill Clinton in 1996 that "current scientific evidence does not support a causal link" between the veterans' symptoms and chemical exposures in the Persian Gulf.

Instead, the earlier group said, stress "is likely to be an important contributing factor to the broad range of physical and psychological illnesses currently being reported by gulf war veterans."

Another panel of scientists convened in 1998 by the Institute of Medicine, a unit of the National Academies that focuses on health and medical advice, has produced a series of reports that generally point away from neurotoxin exposure as a likely cause of the veterans' illnesses.

Some 697,000 American troops were sent to the Persian Gulf at the end of 1990 to drive the Iraqi forces of President Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Though the military campaign was swift and successful, 13 years after the war ended many veterans still complain of persistent fatigue, headaches, joint pain, numbness, diarrhea and other health problems.

Among dozens of studies cited by the new report is a 1998 survey that looked at about 2,000 Kansas veterans, 1,548 of whom served in the gulf. It found that more than 30 percent of the gulf veterans report three or more such symptoms. The presence of multiple symptoms, their persistence for many years and the dominance of muscular and skeletal complaints all distinguish the ailments of gulf war veterans from the ailments of veterans of other wars, Dr. Golomb said.

The Pentagon admitted in 1997 that as many as 100,000 American service members might have been exposed to nerve gas when American combat engineers blew up the Kamisiyah ammunition depot in southern Iraq in March 1991, shortly after the war.

The new panel was appointed in 2002 by Anthony J. Principi, the veterans affairs secretary, in accordance with a law passed in 1998 but never acted on by the Clinton administration. Of the 11 members 7 are scientists and 4 are veterans, including the chairman, James Binns, a Vietnam veteran and former Pentagon official. Eight other scientists worked as advisers to the panel.

Committee members said release of the report, which was described in the Oct. 1 issue of Science magazine, had been set for earlier this month but was postponed because of scheduling problems.

Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Principi, who was in Michigan Thursday for the groundbreaking of a new veterans cemetery, praised the committee's work.

"I'm looking forward to studying the committee's report and working with them to ensure adequate research funding to find answers to these perplexing medical issues," he said. He said the department was already providing disability benefits for some veterans who have developed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, based on studies finding that the veterans have nearly double the risk of the disease as veterans who did not go to the Persian Gulf do.

According to his spokeswoman, Cynthia Church, Mr. Principi, a combat-decorated Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, took a particular interest in the research of Dr. Robert W. Haley, whom he appointed to the panel. Dr. Haley, chief of epidemiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, has written a series of studies of the possible effects of neurotoxins on gulf war veterans, including some financed by the Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot.

Dr. Haley acknowledged that his work, which has been championed by some veterans and members of Congress, has been viewed skeptically by some scientists. He said the current committee's findings represent a "revolutionary change" from the past, when what he called "radically conservative" scientists dismissed the neurotoxin thesis.

"I think this committee has honestly weighed all the evidence," he said. "Although it's not proven, the preponderance of the evidence supports a new explanation - brain cell damage, nervous system damage caused by chemical exposures."

Jim Reichert, a 41-year-old industrial equipment mechanic who lives in Columbia, Ill., said he was heartened to hear of the committee's conclusions.

Mr. Reichert said he had served as a Blackhawk helicopter crewman in the war. After his six months in the gulf region, he developed strange symptoms which have never gone away, he said. Fatigue forced him to give up hunting and fishing, he loses control of his hand muscles and drops tools on the job, and he suffers from chronic diarrhea and a recurring, blistering skin condition.

"If it was stress alone, it wouldn't have lasted this long," Mr. Reichert said. Referring to himself and other ailing veterans, he said: "We're not crazy. If I'm a little nuts, it's because I've been sick so long."


Ellie