Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Neuroendocrine correlates of childhood trauma in CFS

Nature Reviews Endocrinology volume 8, page 502 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

We read the Review article written by Andrew S. Papadopoulos and Anthony J. Cleare (Papadopoulos, A. S. & Cleare, A. J. Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis dysfunction in chronic fatigue syndrome. Nat. Rev. Endocrinol. 8, 22–32; 2012)1 with a lot of interest. Although we generally agree with their point of view, we would like to comment on the following inaccuracies made by the authors when referring to the results of a study performed by our research group.2

In Table 3, the authors incorrectly mention that patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) with early-life stress showed lower cortisol responses than both controls and patients with CFS without early-life stress, after dexamethasone and after the combination with corticotropin-releasing hormone. On the contrary, it was the group without early-life stress that showed significantly lower cortisol responses than the other two groups.2 Furthermore, it is not correct to state that the “mean saliva cortisol levels of those [CFS patients] without early-life stress as well as those with early-life stress were significantly lower [after 0.5 mg dexamethasone] than those of healthy controls” (page 26), nor that the cortisol output in the group with CFS and early-life stress CFS was 'intermediate' after dexamethasone (Table 4). In our study, there were no significant differences in cortisol responses between the early-life stress CFS group and the control individuals, as clearly mentioned in the paper2 and in a related review article, published in 2007.3

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Papadopoulos, A. S. & Cleare, A. J. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction in chronic fatigue syndrome. Nat. Rev. Endocrinol. 27, 22–32 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Van Den Eede, F. et al. Combined dexamethasone/corticotropin-releasing factor test in chronic fatigue syndrome. Psychol. Med. 38, 963–973 (2008).

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Van Den Eede, F., Moorkens, G., Van Houdenhove, B., Cosyns, P. & Claes, S. J. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis function in chronic fatigue syndrome. Neuropsychobiology 55, 112–120 (2007).

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Heim, C. et al. Childhood trauma and risk for chronic fatigue syndrome: association with neuroendocrine dysfunction. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 66, 72–80 (2009).

    Article  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Weissbecker, I., Floyd, A., Dedert, E., Salmon, P. & Sephton, S. Childhood trauma and diurnal cortisol disruption in fibromyalgia syndrome. Psychoneuroendocrinology 31, 312–324 (2006).

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Antwerp University Hospital, Wilrijkstraat 10, Edegem (Antwerp), 2650, Belgium

    Filip Van Den Eede

  2. Department of Internal Medicine, Antwerp University Hospital, Wilrijkstraat 10, Edegem (Antwerp), 2650, Belgium

    Greta Moorkens

Authors
  1. Filip Van Den Eede
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Greta Moorkens
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Filip Van Den Eede.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Eede, F., Moorkens, G. Neuroendocrine correlates of childhood trauma in CFS. Nat Rev Endocrinol 8, 502 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrendo.2011.153-c1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrendo.2011.153-c1

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing