Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and High Allostatic Load

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
We examined the relationship between chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and allostatic load in a population-based, case-control study of 43 CFS patients and 60 nonfatigued, healthy controls from Wichita, KS, USA. An allostatic load index was computed for all study participants using available laboratory and clinical data, according to a standard algorithm for allostatic load. Logistic regression analysis was used to compute odds ratios (ORs) as estimates of relative risk in models that included adjustment for matching factors and education; 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were computed to estimate the precision of the ORs. CFS patients were 1.9-times more likely to have a high allostatic load index than controls (95% CI = 0.75, 4.75) after adjusting for education level, in addition to matching factors. The strength of this association increased in a linear trend across categories of low, medium and high levels of allostatic load (p = 0.06). CFS was associated with a high level of allostatic load. The three allostatic load components that best discriminated cases from controls were waist:hip ratio, aldosterone and urinary cortisol.