It's Not Just In Your Head, It's In Your Genes, Too.

New research shows that Chronic Fatigue has a genetic component!

In one set of studies, scientists looked at the activity levels of 20,000 genes known to be involved in the body's response to such stresses as infections, injuries or emotional trauma. Several hundred were found to be over- or under-active in various subgroups of fatigued patients.

Most of those correlations were weak -- that is, the gene expression patterns alone could not accurately distinguish those whose symptoms had been diagnosed as the syndrome from those whose symptoms had not. But in one analysis, the activity of just 26 genes did accurately predict which of six categories of chronic fatigue a patient had on the basis of symptoms and other clinical tests. That is a powerful hint that those genes -- many of them involved in immune system regulation, the adrenal gland and the brain's hypothalamus and pituitary gland, which are involved in the body's response to stress -- may hold clues to the disease variants.

In other analyses, involving 50 genes that some people inherit with seemingly minor "misspellings," five of the 500 genetic glitches that were tracked repeatedly correlated with an apparent susceptibility to chronic fatigue. Those five include genes that affect levels of serotonin -- the neurotransmitter whose levels are tweaked by many antidepressant drugs -- and glutamate, a chemical that excites certain brain pathways in response to stress.

The specific implications remain uncertain for now, said Vernon, a CDC molecular biologist. "But everybody's finding the same five genes to be involved, which is pretty cool."

Several other studies on the Wichita samples found abnormal levels of various hormones relating to stress and mood -- additional evidence that chronic fatigue syndrome patients are genetically and neurologically "wired" to respond to stress abnormally.

It is already known, Vernon said, that the brain can literally rewire itself -- breaking old connections between neurons while building new ones -- in response to various physical or emotional events. Chronic fatigue syndrome may be the result of a bad rewiring job, she said, in people genetically predisposed to handle stress poorly.

Reading all this made so much sense to me! Medical experts already know that a lifetime of stress can re-wire the brain and cause certain mental conditions. Now, it seems that a combination of both nurture (life circumstances) and nature (a genetic inability to handle stress well) makes *some* of us very, very ill.

It's funny, too, that I would come across this article this morning. Steady Eddie and I have been talking more about family these days (as we try to decided if we're going to move in together). "You know," he said the other day, "I've been thinking about what you asked the other day--about if there was ever a time when my parents said anything bad about my aunts or uncles. I remember one time when there was a problem between my mother and one of her sisters--that was the aunt I told you who died just recently...."

"oh, yeah," I said, "I remember you mentioning her."

"They had some problems for awhile, but then they got over it. My father had a lot of brothers and sisters, and I never knew of any problems with them. We saw them all the time..."

I started thinking more about how I don't feel close, or have any strong feelings of affection for anyone in my family. I've been thinking, too, how the infighting over my Aunt Julie's estate has finally cut the gossamer family ties that kept some of us in touch with one another.

There were too many family secrets, told to some, withheld from others, that made ideal of family an unattainable ideal. Families can't be loving, or unstressful, when there are constant power struggles.

One can't get close to anyone when there are constant power struggles.

Reviewing this article, and the discussion with Steady Eddit, I get it now how the stress of a childhood living with other's insanity, along with my own life mistakes, a very bad case of mononucleosis, and a possible genetic predisposition for an inability to handle stress, toppled me over into a long-term illness.

I get it--but I'm not too sure what to do with it. I can know how I got to where I am, and I can understand the causes. I can use that information to put Me in perspective. But do these reasons and causes help me to move forward in life? Will they help me make the right decisions regarding future employment and the structure of my future with, or without, Steady Eddie? Do I take a moment to view myself as crippled in some way, because I really don't handle stress well, and *not* do anything that might cause myself stress? Or do I find ways to override my gentic inability to handle stress?

Where, indeed, do I go from here??