High prevalence of fatigue in quiescent inflammatory bowel disease is not related to adrenocortical insufficiency

Abstract

Fatigue is an important feature in IBD in remission, adversely affecting the quality of life. It does not, however, affect all patients, nor does it seem to be the result of hypocortisolism.

The contribution of disease severity, depression and negative affectivity to fatigue in multiple sclerosis: A comparison with ulcerative colitis

“…Higher scores indicate more physical or mental fatigue. The MFI is generally used in the case of patients with chronic (neurological) diseases [4,31,32], and the Dutch language version has shown good reliability and validity [30]. In this study Cronbach's alphas of both subscales were respectively .80 and .89 for the MS sample and .90 and .89 for the UC sample.…”

“…Although the ideal control group is always a point of discussion, UC patients are especially appropriate as controls because UC is also a chronic, intermittent, and disabling disease, that most often starts between the ages of 20 and 40 [23]. Furthermore, fatigue and depression are common symptoms in both MS and UC [32,51,52], and UC is not characterized by chronic pain such as rheumatoid arthritis.…”

Post-inflammatory fatigue in sarcoidosis: Personality profiles, psychological symptoms and stress hormones

“…The literature gives ample evidence of chronic fatigue syndromes after infections with viruses like Epstein-Barr virus [1], Ross River virus [2], Coxiella burnetii [3,4], and enterovirus [5,6]. However, also noninfectious diseases have been associated with chronic fatigue such as rheumatic arthritis [7], cancer [8,9], or Crohn's disease [10]. From all these reports it is obvious that, irrespective of the type of infection or inflammation, patients report -besides fatigue -the same constellation of fatigue-related symptoms: pain, muscular weakness, poor mental concentration, and increased and long-lasting malaise after exertion.…”

“…There is evidence of hypocortisolism (as measured in plasma, salvia and urine) and support for blunted adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) responses in challenge tests in patients diagnosed with CFS [38][39][40]. However, literature on the association between the activity of the HPA axis and postinflammatory or post-infection fatigue has only been reported for chronic fatigue in post-Epstein-Barr virus infection [41] and in quiescent inflammatory bowel disease [10]. Until now, it is unclear whether HPA factors are associated with chronic post-inflammatory fatigue in sarcoidosis.…”

Conventional treatment regimens for ulcerative colitis alleviate fatigue – an observational cohort study

“…[2] In Crohn's disease, up to 80% of patients with active disease [3] and 30-40% of patients in remission have been reported to suffer from fatigue. [4,5] Similarly, in ulcerative colitis, 42-47% of patients with newly diagnosed and active disease report significant fatigue, [6] compared to 20-35% of patients in remission. [7,8] These observations indicate that disease activity is in some way associated with fatigue severity.…”