Environmental illness: a controlled study of 26 subjects with '20th century disease'

Environmental illness (EI) is a term used to describe the presence of a variety of symptoms said to result from an imbalance in the immune system, which is caused by common foods and chemicals. Many patients who believe they have EI use clinicians who call themselves clinical ecologists and employ nontraditional medical approaches. Such practitioners and, in fact, the existence of EI itself, have been viewed skeptically by the medical community, many members of which believe that EI patients suffer primarily from psychiatric disorders. To learn more concerning this issue, 26 subjects who had received the diagnosis of EI were studied. They were evaluated with standardized psychiatric assessment tests, and test results were compared with those from an age- and sex-matched group of 46 control subjects, selected randomly from a pool of relatives of people who had been classified as psychiatrically normal on psychiatric tests. Results showed that 16 of the 26 EI subjects were under the care of their clinical ecologists, receiving such treatments as avoidance of offending agents, special diets, vitamins, oxygen masks, 'safe' rooms, douches or enemas, and serotonin or histamine. EI subjects had a larger total number of psychiatric symptoms than controls, according to test results (28 versus 9), as well as a larger number of psychiatric diagnoses. The case history of one EI sufferer who said he had 'toxic brain syndrome' is presented. In general, people with EI tend to be female, well-educated, and interested in their diagnosis. They attend support groups, read EI literature, and have a circle of friends that includes many fellow EI victims. Most of the participants in this study were satisfied with their EI clinician, and had been dissatisfied with traditional practitioners. A review of the medical literature concerning EI is presented. It is likely that people with this diagnosis suffer from common psychiatric disorders, and that they are poorly served by traditional physicians, who often fail to sympathize with their suffering and prevent them from participating in their own health care. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)