Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study in the January issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry concluding that childhood trauma is a potent risk factor for development of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

 

To be more specific, they said that childhood trauma, particularly emotional maltreatment and sexual abuse, is associated with a six-fold increased risk for CFS. The condition affects about 2.5 percent of adults in the United States (more than one million people) and little is known regarding its causes and how it develops. CFS is diagnosed when patients have experienced extreme fatigue for at least six months. For people suffering from it even a long-hour sleep is not refreshing. They also experience muscle and joint pain. According to the CDC, women are more likely to develop CFS, which is most common in people in their 40s and 50s.

 

The good news is that not every child exposed to trauma is going to develop CFS as an adult. The condition might be also triggered by glandular fever, chickenpox, shingles, viral meningitis, gastroenteritis, salmonella and Lyme disease. Therefore, “it is of clinical importance to understand sources of individual differences in vulnerability to the pathogenic effects of stress,” said lead author Christine Heim, of Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia.

 

For the study, she and colleagues analyzed 113 people with the syndrome and 124 who did not have the condition, in Georgia. They were asked to complete questionnaires about five different childhood traumas, including sexual, emotional and physical abuse, and physical and emotional neglect. It is a known fact that trauma survivors also have an increased risk of obesity, teenage pregnancy, heart disease and hypertension.

 

The study found that 66 people with CFS suffered moderate to severe trauma as children compared with 29 in the control group. Those who experienced sexual and emotional abuse and emotional neglect had the highest risk of developing CFS, Dr. Heim said. Furthermore, those who had childhood trauma and suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder, including flashbacks and nightmares, had a nine fold increased risk of CFS.

 

The study also found that those who suffered from childhood trauma had low levels of cortisol, a hormone that helps regulate the body’s response to stress. More exactly, when a person faces stress, the body releases cortisol to help it relax. If there isn’t enough cortisol, that could cause altered or prolonged responses to stress, which can lead to fatigue and pain.

 

“The study indicates that low levels may actually reflect a marker for the risk of developing CFS rather than being a sign of the syndrome itself. When looking at CFS cases with and without histories of childhood trauma, only those with childhood trauma had the classic low cortisol levels often seen in CFS cases,” Dr. Heim said.

 

However interesting the findings of this study might be, the researchers noted they have to do a “forward-looking” study of trauma survivors for many years in order to prove the link between trauma and chronic fatigue.