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Chemical Sensitivity Tied to Anxiety, Depression

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Chemical Sensitivity Tied to Anxiety, Depression

Wed Oct 23, 1:34 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -

Anxiety and depression may be

important features of multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), a

controversial diagnosis given to some people with apparent

allergic reactions to a range of everyday exposures.

A small study of MCS patients found that they were more

likely to suffer depression than either healthy individuals or

people with asthma. And both asthmatics and those with MCS

showed greater-than-average "anxiety sensitivity," an

exaggerated response to anxious feelings that is characteristic

of panic disorder.

People diagnosed with MCS typically report a range of

symptoms, from headaches and joint and muscle pain to fatigue,

memory loss and depression. The medical community is divided

over whether MCS actually exists, but some believe that

low-level exposures to everyday chemicals like those in

cosmetics, soaps and detergent trigger physical reactions in

MCS patients.

Some researchers have also proposed that the psychological

disorders that often accompany MCS are a reaction to the

syndrome, and not the underlying cause, according to the

authors of the new study.

This study, they note, could not pinpoint whether MCS

patients' anxiety and depression were the cause of or reactions

to their MCS symptoms.

"However," they report in the October issue of the Journal

of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, "given the poorly

understood and uncontrolled nature of MCS, both depression and

anxiety may represent a reaction to the frustration of this

disorder."

Dr. Elise Caccappolo-van Vliet of UMDNJ- Wood

Medical School in Piscataway, New Jersey, led the study.

The researchers looked at 30 people diagnosed with MCS, 19

asthmatics and 31 healthy individuals. Overall, more MCS

patients met the clinical definitions of depression and

somatization disorder, in which a patient complains of

recurrent physical symptoms that have no apparent physical

cause. Both asthmatics and participants with MCS had higher

rates of anxiety sensitivity and "chemical odor intolerance" to

substances such as pesticides, paint and perfume.

According Caccappolo-van Vliet and her colleagues, if a

person associates symptoms with a certain environmental

trigger, "fear and anxiety would also be expected to accompany

such exposures and contribute to symptoms."

They note that for asthmatics, this idea is "generally

accepted as reasonable" since environmental irritants are known

to trigger asthma attacks.

"However," the researchers add, "for MCS patients this

response tends to be attributed more to psychiatric causes,

perhaps a result of the lack of an identified organic basis to

the illness."

But whatever the cause of MCS symptoms, they conclude, the

current findings suggest that if the anxiety and depression

that come with MCS are treated, patients' physical and mental

symptoms might improve.

SOURCE: Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

2002;44:890-901.

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