MCS Patients Hate Their Dads

J Womens Health 1998 Nov;7(9):1135-47
Early life stress, negative paternal relationships, and
chemical intolerance in middle-aged women: support
for a neural sensitization model.

Bell IR, Baldwin CM, Russek LG, Schwartz GE,
Hardin EE. Department of Psychiatry, University of
Arizona, Tucson, USA.

This study (ntotal = 35) compared early life
stress ratings, parental relationships, and health
status, notably orthostatic blood pressures, of
middle-aged women with low-level chemical
intolerance (CI group) and depression,
depressives without CI (DEP group), and normals.
Environmental chemical intolerance is a symptom
of several controversial conditions in which
women are overrepresented, that is, sick building
syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity, chronic
fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia. Previous
investigators have postulated that people with CI
have variants of somatization disorder, depression,
posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) initiated
by childhood abuse or a toxic exposure event.
One neurobehavioral model for CI, somatization
disorder, recurrent depression, and PTSD is
neural sensitization, that is, the progressive
amplification of host responses (e.g., behavioral,
neurochemical) to repeated intermittent stimuli
(e.g., drugs, chemicals, endogenous mediators,
stressors). Females are more vulnerable to
sensitization than are males. Limbic and mesolimbic
pathways mediate central nervous system
sensitization. Although both CI and DEP groups
had high levels of life stress and past abuse, the
CI group had the most distant and weak paternal
relationships and highest limbic somatic
dysfunction subscale scores. Only the CI group
showed sensitization of sitting blood pressures
over sessions. Together with prior evidence,
these data are consistent with a neural sensitization
model for CI in certain women. The findings
may have implications for poorer long-term medical
as well as neuropsychiatric health outcomes
of a subset of women with CI. Subsequent research
should test this model in specific clinical diagnostic
groups with CI.

On Jan 26, 2:22*pm, Mark Thorson wrote:
J Womens Health 1998 Nov;7(9):1135-47
Early life stress, negative paternal relationships, and
chemical intolerance in middle-aged women: support
for a neural sensitization model.

Bell IR, Baldwin CM, Russek LG, Schwartz GE,
Hardin EE. Department of Psychiatry, University of
Arizona, Tucson, USA.

T

Wow, Mark, amazing title, bud. Just yet another example
of stupidity by anti-MCS groupies---my Dad was my best friend--
so please, do some "noodling" before thinking about a subject
matter. It is quite insulting......