[News Release] VA, NIH launch study of Gulf War Illness, 2023

SNT Gatchaman

SNT Gatchaman

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Staff member
Not sure if this was already posted.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/va-nih-launch-study-gulf-war-illness

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and National Institutes of Health have launched a study to gain a better understanding of the chronic symptoms of Gulf War Illness. The disease affects multiple systems in the body and includes chronic symptoms such as fatigue, headache, memory and cognitive difficulties, joint and muscle pain, poor sleep, and problems with gastrointestinal and respiratory function. It affects about a third of the nearly 700,000 men and women who served in the Persian Gulf during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
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Researchers from NIH will seek to identify how the illness presents itself – in ways that can be measured or observed – in each participant. The research will focus on the immune and autonomic nervous systems, as well as the body’s energy-production pathways.
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Eligible veterans will be invited to the NIH Clinical Center for up to two weeks for comprehensive testing. Among other tests, the research protocol includes administering a peak exercise challenge to trigger symptom flares. The procedure has been used to explore the mechanisms of other chronic illnesses, such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.
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The study is expected to last five years. Initial enrollment began in July 2022 and focused on Gulf War veterans who were enrolled in other studies. Enrollment is now open to those from the larger Gulf War veteran community, with the first participant arriving to the NIH Clinical Center on April 16, 2023.
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VA researchers will screen 1990-91 era Gulf War veterans through the Miami VA Medical Center and the California and Washington, D.C., sites of VA’s War Related Illness and Injury Study Center(link is external). Potential study participants will be referred to NIH to gain more insight into Gulf War Illness. Researchers from NIH will seek to identify how the illness presents itself – in ways that can be measured or observed – in each participant. The research will focus on the immune and autonomic nervous systems, as well as the body’s energy-production pathways.
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Several things to note from this.

First, there is no stated limit on the number of participants that I can see in the document. Compare with the stated upper limit of 40 in the ME/CFS study, and only actually getting 17.

Second, Gulf War Veterans have been sick since 1990-1, ie for over 30 years, yet for the ME/CFS study they insisted on under 5 years since onset. Given that it often takes more than 5 years to get a diagnosis, that severely restricted the cohort who could participate.

Third, the specified area of focus -
"The research will focus on the immune and autonomic nervous systems, as well as the body’s energy-production pathways" suggests to me that either these particular systems were found to be relevant in the ME/CFS study, or have been found to be relevant in GWI.
Why not, for example, the circulatory system - blood vessels or red cell deformity for example. And why not brain scans?
 
NIH, VA Launch Study of Gulf War Illness
https://nihrecord.nih.gov/2023/05/12/nih-va-launch-study-gulf-war-illness
Researchers led by NINDS principal investigator Dr. Brian Walitt will seek to identify how the illness presents itself—in ways that can be measured or observed—in each participant. The research will focus on the immune and autonomic nervous systems, as well as the body’s energy-production pathways. Walitt is head of the interoceptive disorders unit of the Clinical Neurosciences Program in NINDS’s Division of Intramural Research.
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VA-NIH Project IN-DEPTH
https://research.ninds.nih.gov/patients/va-nih-project-depth
 
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