Why do some individuals get Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and other individuals, who have been through almost identical circumstances, escape apparently unscathed ?

Each person’s individual biochemistry is different with all that implies: slightly different enzyme systems, a different genetic makeup and a different immune system. Some people just never seem to get ill no matter how hard they try to! We all recognise the individual who drinks like the proverbial fish, smokes like the proverbial chimney, works early and late, travels incessantly and is hardly ever ill. On the other hand we are also familiar with people who have one glass of dry sherry at Easter, another at Christmas (if they are feeling truly daring), whose lives are relatively stress-free but who are always adept at picking up whatever bug is going despite their excessive moderation.
Some scientists have referred to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sufferers as ‘human canaries’
In the old days the miners took canaries down the mines with them. If toxic gases were escaping the canaries, whose biochemical systems were unable to detoxify poisonous gases as efficiently as the miners, would demonstrate the signs of toxic gas poisoning before any of the miners were affected and the birds would become unconscious. This would, hopefully, alert the miners that it was high time to get out of the mine before they suffered any ill-effects themselves. The canaries were more vulnerable to the toxic gases because their detoxification enzyme systems were not as strong as the miners’ and this afforded the miners a valuable few minutes warning about the presence of poisonous gas before they, too, would be overcome. They knew that it was time to leave the mine as quickly as possible. Some chronic fatigue syndrome sufferers will have enzyme systems that are sluggish and just cannot cope with the amount of detoxification that our drinking, smoking, hard-working, early-and-late, seriously celebratory friend’s system can happily process.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome often occurs when there is an unfavourable combination of circumstances and an individual’s system is pushed just a little too far beyond his or her physical or emotional (e.g. bullying at work) limits.

The average healthy bowel contains a greater number of bacteria than the number of cells in the human body.
It is critical for well-being to maintain the correct bacterial balance in our gutfor a wide variety of reasons not least immune competency. If the gut wall is inflamed and ‘leaky’ and not functioning properly as a barrier, then toxic products and half-digested materials get across this barrier into the blood stream. This may make people feel vaguely but decidedly unwell. This ‘leaky gut syndrome’ which then occurs may cause proteins not not to be broken down properly into their constituent amino acids and as a result larger protein particles, called peptides (a particle composed of of several amino acids), become absorbed across the gut wall into the blood stream causing immune system problems and possibly also contributing to joint pains and various forms of arthritis. Dr Alan Ebringer in London’s Middlesex Hospital has done much in his research to study the role of bowel bacterial infections in both rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis and he has identified certain species of proteus and also klebsiella as potential troublemakers.

The Liver and irritable bowel syndrome connection. The Liver has an important role in detoxifying materials after they enter the bloodstream.
Any toxins that get into the blood stream have to be dealt with by the liver before they are allowed out of the specialised gut blood circulation, into what is called the ‘Systemic Circulation’ (the heart, great vessels, brain, etc.). Relatively frequently the liver may be ‘overloaded’ by gut toxins or it may be sluggish for other reasons and find it difficult to cope with its work of detoxification. Consequently patients may feel somewhat weak and fuzzy-headed. Sluggish liver detoxification also contributes to chemical sensitivity. As one patient told me “I constantly feel as if I’m on the morning after the night before – except there was no night before. I constantly feel fuzzy-headed, as as if I had a skinful last night, except that I didn’t!”.

What kinds of troublesome low-grade gut infections are there?
Gut infections may be fungal, bacterial or possibly worm-like. At the moment conventional medicine is working hard to develop more sensitive means of diagnosing gut infection and advances have been made, especially in terms of diagnosing bacterial gut infection using the Hydrogen Breath Test, but there is still a long way to go in terms of developing reliable investigations that are both relative and specific.

What happens if liver pathways are not running at or near full efficiency.
This does not mean that there is something drastically wrong with the patient’s liver, that is life-threatening. Almost everyone I see has had liver function tests, checked by either family doctor or consultant. These will usually have been totally satisfactory. This is important in that it excludes any serious or life-threatening liver disease. However, the liver may be somewhat sluggish in its normal work of breaking down toxins/old red blood cells/old hormone molecules that are past their sell-by date. A liver that is not functioning optimally may result in its owner fee ling sluggish a lot of the time. It may also result in increased sensitivity to toxins.

As a result of sluggish liver detoxification people may notice food sensitivities and sensitivities to perfume, alcohol, chemicals. People may also notice sensitivity to processed foods.

In any case of irritable bowel syndrome I would stress that there are no ‘magic’ cures and people need to take and be guided by the advice of their general practitioner and gastroentrerologist but, that being said, I feel that using integrative therapies in a thoughtful way is frequently, in my experience, a tremendous help.