A recent study done at the University of Ohio revealed that a biological link between pain and fatigue may bear the answer to why more women than men suffer from CFS and Fibromyalgia.
The researchers found that through experimenting with mice that a protein involved in muscle pain works in conjunction with the male hormone testosterone to protect against muscle fatigue.
Chronic pain and fatigue often occur together — as many as three in four people with chronic, widespread musculoskeletal pain report having fatigue; and as many as 94 percent of people with chronic fatigue syndromes report muscle pain. Women make up the majority of patients with these conditions.
To study the link between muscle pain, fatigue and gender, the researchers compared exercise-induced muscle fatigue in male and female mice with and without ASIC3 — an acid-activated ion channel protein that the team has shown to be involved in musculoskeletal pain.
Leave a Reply