Symptoms of Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance associated with chemicals (IEI-C) are positively associated with perceptual anomalies, 2022, Speck

Abstract

Objective
Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance (IEI; i.e. the experience of somatic symptoms attributed to environmental agents) represents a functional somatic syndrome of unclear aetiology. Based on previous findings that suggest an association between IEI and perceptual anomalies, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between symptoms of IEI associated with chemicals (IEI-C) and facets of the schizotypy spectrum.

Methods
A cross-sectional study design was used with N = 410 (78.3% female) persons responding to an online survey in which chemical odor sensitivity (COS) and modern health worries (MHW) that are associated with IEI-C, as well as schizotypal personality traits (SPQ), hallucination proneness (LSHS) and delusional ideation (PDI) as core components of the schizotypy spectrum were assessed.

Results
Schizotypal traits were found to be significantly positively associated with MHWs (r = 0.20, p = .01), COS (r = 0.23, p = .01), and showed significant positive associations with hallucination proneness. Magical thinking was found to exhibit a significant positive relationship with both MHW (r = 0.17, p = .01) and COS (r = 0.21, p = .01). These small associations between IEI-C and facets of the psychosis spectrum remained significant even after statistically controlling for individual levels of trait anxiety and depression.

Conclusion
Schizotypal personality traits, particularly magical thinking, and hallucination proneness, appear positively related to facets of IEI-C. The findings are of relevance for the advancement of theoretical models of IEI.

Open access, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399922000939

 

Just because someone latches on to a theory of what makes them sick because of an absence of scientific inquiry into their symptoms it does not then naturally follow that they are wrong about being physically ill. To say so is a non-sequitur. Even when you grant they may have a point about people's thinking. Magical thinking is something that both patient and investigator can be accused of. And of course the patient may not be wrong in the end too. Environmental illnesses happen. Ask Dupont.

https://www.wvpublic.org/news/2017-...nt-for-teflon-chemical-contamination-of-water

As always they go 'looking' for what they know they will find because it set up that way at the outset.

Not a new comment but these people are not doing research they are bolstering a particular POV about 'other' people who are psychologically weak. It is taking a position of moral superiority, which is not science.

 

I would love to see research into “Schizotypal personality traits, particularly magical thinking, and hallucination proneness, appear positively related to facets of” the personalities of people researching somatic and functional conditions. I did not think ‘projection’ was such an important issue, but the more I read so called research like this the more I wonder about the importance of projection in understanding this whole field of study. Projection by the researchers on to their patient group.

 

Oh Lord, I've been thinking this for a long time... They want their theoretical model to exist so badly that it completely blinds them. By pride or whatever, the result is that they distort reality and therefore constitute a potential danger for patients.

 

Because fart noises and also sad trombone but only if bestial shriek.

 

I think MCS is real, plug-in Febrezes give me headaches.

It annoys me that the medical profession believes sequences of light can set off an epileptic seizure but refuse to believe that a scent can trigger symptoms.

 

I don't think medics would deny that odours can trigger symptoms. Nausea, streaming eyes and nose and all sorts of other things are symptoms triggered by odours everyone recognises.

Where I think the medical profession is justified is in being sceptical about calling this 'Multiple Chemical Sensitivity' with all the baggage that goes with that on support websites. Some people are no doubt abnormally sensitive to scents. But let's call it that.