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Boruch AE, Barhorst EE, Rayne TJ, Roberge GA, Brukardt SM, Leitel ZT, Coe CL, Fleshner M, Falvo MJ, Cook DB, Lindheimer JB. Exercise does not cause post-exertional malaise in Veterans with Gulf War Illness: A randomized, controlled, dose-response, crossover study. Brain Behav Immun 2024; 120:221-230. [PMID: 38777281 PMCID: PMC11269017 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2024.05.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/03/2024] [Revised: 05/01/2024] [Accepted: 05/19/2024] [Indexed: 05/25/2024] Open
Abstract
Chronic multisymptom illnesses (CMI) such as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Long-COVID, and Gulf War Illness (GWI) are associated with an elevated risk of post-exertional malaise (PEM), an acute exacerbation of symptoms and other related outcomes following exercise. These individuals may benefit from personalized exercise prescriptions which prioritize risk minimization, necessitating a better understanding of dose-response effects of exercise intensity on PEM. METHODS Veterans with GWI (n = 40) completed a randomized controlled crossover experiment comparing 20 min of seated rest to light-, moderate-, and vigorous-intensity cycling conditions over four separate study visits. Symptoms, pain sensitivity, cognitive performance, inflammatory markers (C-reactive protein and plasma cytokines) were measured before and within 1 h after exercise and seated rest. Physical activity behavior was measured ≥ 7 days following each study visit via actigraphy. Linear mixed effects regression models tested the central hypothesis that higher intensity exercise would elicit greater exacerbation of negative outcomes, as indicated by a significant condition-by-time interaction for symptom, pain sensitivity, cognitive performance, and inflammatory marker models and a significant main effect of condition for physical activity models. RESULTS Significant condition-by-time interactions were not observed for primary or secondary measures of symptoms, pain sensitivity, cognitive performance, and a majority of inflammatory markers. Similarly, a significant effect of condition was not observed for primary or secondary measures of physical activity. CONCLUSIONS Undesirable effects such as symptom exacerbation were observed for some participants, but the group-level risk of PEM following light-, moderate-, or vigorous-intensity exercise was no greater than seated rest. These findings challenge several prior views about PEM and lend support to a broader body of literature showing that the benefits of exercise outweigh the risks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander E Boruch
- William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital, Madison, WI, USA; University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
| | | | | | - Gunnar A Roberge
- William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital, Madison, WI, USA; University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
| | | | - Zoie T Leitel
- William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital, Madison, WI, USA; University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
| | | | | | - Michael J Falvo
- VA Airborne Hazards and Burn Pits Center of Excellence, East Orange, NJ, USA
| | - Dane B Cook
- William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital, Madison, WI, USA; University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Jacob B Lindheimer
- William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital, Madison, WI, USA; University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA; James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital, Tampa, FL, USA.
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Gaudiuso R, Chen S, Kokkotou E, Conboy L, Jacobson E, Hanlon EB, Melikechi N. Diagnosis of Gulf War Illness Using Laser-Induced Spectra Acquired from Blood Samples. APPLIED SPECTROSCOPY 2022; 76:887-893. [PMID: 34596442 DOI: 10.1177/00037028211042049] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Gulf War illness (GWI) is a chronic illness with no known validated biomarkers that affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. As a result, there is an urgent need for the development of an untargeted and unbiased method to distinguish GWI patients from non-GWI patients. We report on the application of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to distinguish blood plasma samples from a group of subjects with GWI and from subjects with chronic low back pain as controls. We initially obtained LIBS data from blood plasma samples of four GWI patients and four non-GWI patients. We used an analytical method based on taking the difference between a mean LIBS spectrum obtained with those of GWI patients from the mean LIBS spectrum of those of the control group, to generate a "difference" spectrum for our classification model. This model was cross-validated using different numbers of differential LIBS emission peaks. A subset of 17 of the 82 atomic and ionic transitions that provided 70% of correct diagnosis was selected test in a blinded fashion using 10 additional samples and was found to yield 90% classification accuracy, 100% sensitivity, and 83.3% specificity. Of the 17 atomic and ionic transitions, eight could be assigned unambiguously to species of Na, K, and Fe.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rosalba Gaudiuso
- Department of Physics and Applied Physics, Kennedy College of Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, USA
- Veterans' Administration Bedford Healthcare System, Bedford, USA
| | - Sirui Chen
- Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
| | - Efi Kokkotou
- Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
| | - Lisa Conboy
- New England School of Acupuncture, Massachusetts School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Worcester, USA
| | - Eric Jacobson
- Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
| | - Eugene B Hanlon
- Veterans' Administration Bedford Healthcare System, Bedford, USA
| | - Noureddine Melikechi
- Department of Physics and Applied Physics, Kennedy College of Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, USA
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Assessing the Beneficial Effects of the Immunomodulatory Glycan LNFPIII on Gut Microbiota and Health in a Mouse Model of Gulf War Illness. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH 2020; 17:ijerph17197081. [PMID: 32992640 PMCID: PMC7579323 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17197081] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2020] [Revised: 09/11/2020] [Accepted: 09/23/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
The microbiota’s influence on host (patho) physiology has gained interest in the context of Gulf War Illness (GWI), a chronic disorder featuring dysregulation of the gut–brain–immune axis. This study examined short- and long-term effects of GWI-related chemicals on gut health and fecal microbiota and the potential benefits of Lacto-N-fucopentaose-III (LNFPIII) treatment in a GWI model. Male C57BL/6J mice were administered pyridostigmine bromide (PB; 0.7 mg/kg) and permethrin (PM; 200 mg/kg) for 10 days with concurrent LNFPIII treatment (35 μg/mouse) in a short-term study (12 days total) and delayed LNFPIII treatment (2×/week) beginning 4 months after 10 days of PB/PM exposure in a long-term study (9 months total). Fecal 16S rRNA sequencing was performed on all samples post-LNFPIII treatment to assess microbiota effects of GWI chemicals and acute/delayed LNFPIII administration. Although PB/PM did not affect species composition on a global scale, it affected specific taxa in both short- and long-term settings. PB/PM elicited more prominent long-term effects, notably, on the abundances of bacteria belonging to Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae families and the genus Allobaculum. LNFPIII improved a marker of gut health (i.e., decreased lipocalin-2) independent of GWI and, importantly, increased butyrate producers (e.g., Butyricoccus, Ruminococcous) in PB/PM-treated mice, indicating a positive selection pressure for these bacteria. Multiple operational taxonomic units correlated with aberrant behavior and lipocalin-2 in PB/PM samples; LNFPIII was modulatory. Overall, significant and lasting GWI effects occurred on specific microbiota and LNFPIII treatment was beneficial.
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Carpenter JM, Gordon HE, Ludwig HD, Wagner JJ, Harn DA, Norberg T, Filipov NM. Neurochemical and neuroinflammatory perturbations in two Gulf War Illness models: Modulation by the immunotherapeutic LNFPIII. Neurotoxicology 2019; 77:40-50. [PMID: 31866310 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuro.2019.12.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2019] [Revised: 12/12/2019] [Accepted: 12/19/2019] [Indexed: 01/06/2023]
Abstract
Gulf War Illness (GWI) manifests a multitude of symptoms, including neurological and immunological, and approximately a third of the 1990-1991 Gulf War (GW) veterans suffer from it. This study sought to characterize the acute neurochemical (monoamine) and neuroinflammatory profiles of two established GWI animal models and examine the potential modulatory effects of the novel immunotherapeutic Lacto-N-fucopentaose III (LNFPIII). In Model 1, male C57BL/6 J mice were treated for 10 days with pyridostigmine bromide (PB) and permethrin (PM). In Model 2, a separate cohort of mice were treated for 14 days with PB and N,N-Diethyl-methylbenzamide (DEET), plus corticosterone (CORT) via drinking water on days 8-14 and diisopropylfluorophosphate (DFP) on day 15. LNFPIII was administered concurrently with GWI chemicals treatments. Brain and spleen monoamines and hippocampal inflammatory marker expression were examined by, respectively, HPLC-ECD and qPCR, 6 h post treatment cessation. Serotonergic (5-HT) and dopaminergic (DA) dyshomeostasis caused by GWI chemicals was apparent in multiple brain regions, primarily in the nucleus accumbens (5-HT) and hippocampus (5-HT, DA) for both models. Splenic levels of 5-HT (both models) and norepinephrine (Model 2) were also disrupted by GWI chemicals. LNFPIII treatment prevented many of the GWI chemicals induced monoamine alterations. Hippocampal inflammatory cytokines were increased in both models, but the magnitude and spread of inflammation was greater in Model 2; LNFPIII was anti-inflammatory, more so in the apparently milder Model 1. Overall, in both models, GWI chemicals led to monoamine disbalance and neuroinflammation. LNFPIII co-treatment prevented many of these disruptions in both models, which is indicative of its promise as a potential GWI therapeutic.
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Affiliation(s)
- J M Carpenter
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Athens, GA, United States
| | - H E Gordon
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Athens, GA, United States
| | - H D Ludwig
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Athens, GA, United States
| | - J J Wagner
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Athens, GA, United States
| | - D A Harn
- Department of Infectious Diseases, Athens, GA, United States; Center for Tropical and Emerging Infectious Diseases, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
| | - T Norberg
- Department of Chemistry, University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden
| | - N M Filipov
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Athens, GA, United States.
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