Clinical trial NCT01291758: Exercise in Gulf War Illness (GWI)
Official title: Exercise in Gulf War Illness (GWI)
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Conditions: Gulf War Illness
Persian Gulf Syndrome
Keywords: Persian Gulf War
Gulf War Syndrome
GWI
Gulf War Illness
Exercise
Chronic Fatigue
Fibromyalgia
Veterans
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Migraine headaches
Neuropathy
Lead sponsor: Georgetown University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command
First posted: 2011-02-08
Enrollment: 50
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 38
Maximum age (years): 86
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: COHORT
Time perspective: CROSS_SECTIONAL
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: All veterans who served in the Armed Forces between August 1990 and July 1991

Brief summary: The purpose of this study is to determine if submaximal exercise by bicycle stress tests with pulmonary measurement of VO2MAX plus maximal isometric hand grips on 2 consecutive days causes a higher level of "exertional exhaustion" in GWI compared to healthy veterans (HVets).

Detailed description: Subjects sat on upright bicycles for preexercise symptoms, respiratory gases, EKG, and vital sign measurements.

Submaximal exercise began at low resistance with increases every 30 to 60 seconds until 70% predicted heart rate was reached by 5 minutes. Subjects maintained their pace until 25 minutes, then resistance was increased incrementally to increase to 85% predicted heart rate (approximately sufficient to reach anaerobic threshold).

Symptoms, respiratory gases, EKG, and vital signs were measured every 5 minutes, at peak of exercise, and 5 minute intervals after exercise.

The identical exercise protocol was used approximately 24 hr later. Secondary outcomes were assessed by comparisons from before exercise to after the second bicycle exercise stress test.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Evidence of military enlistment between August 1, 1990 and July 31, 1991, and deployment for 30 consecutive days to:

  * Persian Gulf waters and adjacent land areas
  * Other global locations
  * U.S. only
* Status prior to 1990 and 1991:

  * Active duty
  * National Guard
  * Reserves

Exclusion Criteria:

* Current active duty military personnel
* Any one who was not active duty military personnel between August 1, 1990 and July 31, 1991
* HIV/AIDS; pregnancy or lactation; potential hepatitis; drug addiction; chronic inflammatory, infectious, or autoimmune medical illnesses not associated with GWI; incarceration; dementia, other cognitive limitation; or reliance on a care-giver in order to respond to the questionnaires and other study tests.

Amputations of one or both hands and forearms will be permitted but hand grip tests will not be tested

Primary outcomes:
measure: To assess the alterations due to exercise in Gulf War Veterans
timeFrame: 02/2009-09/2012
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Washington
country: United States
facility: Georgetown University
state: District of Columbia
Study officials:
affiliation: Georgetown University
name: James N Baraniuk, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Gray GC, Reed RJ, Kaiser KS, Smith TC, Gastanaga VM. Self-reported symptoms and medical conditions among 11,868 Gulf War-era veterans: the Seabee Health Study. Am J Epidemiol. 2002 Jun 1;155(11):1033-44. doi: 10.1093/aje/155.11.1033.
citation: Baraniuk JN, Casado B, Maibach H, Clauw DJ, Pannell LK, Hess S S. A Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - related proteome in human cerebrospinal fluid. BMC Neurol. 2005 Dec 1;5:22. doi: 10.1186/1471-2377-5-22.
citation: Janssen B, Hohenadel D, Brinkkoetter P, Peters V, Rind N, Fischer C, Rychlik I, Cerna M, Romzova M, de Heer E, Baelde H, Bakker SJ, Zirie M, Rondeau E, Mathieson P, Saleem MA, Meyer J, Koppel H, Sauerhoefer S, Bartram CR, Nawroth P, Hammes HP, Yard BA, Zschocke J, van der Woude FJ. Carnosine as a protective factor in diabetic nephropathy: association with a leucine repeat of the carnosinase gene CNDP1. Diabetes. 2005 Aug;54(8):2320-7. doi: 10.2337/diabetes.54.8.2320.
citation: Casado B, Zanone C, Annovazzi L, Iadarola P, Whalen G, Baraniuk JN. Urinary electrophoretic profiles from chronic fatigue syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome/fibromyalgia patients: a pilot study for achieving their normalization. J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci. 2005 Jan 5;814(1):43-51. doi: 10.1016/j.jchromb.2004.09.056.
citation: Fukuda K, Nisenbaum R, Stewart G, Thompson WW, Robin L, Washko RM, Noah DL, Barrett DH, Randall B, Herwaldt BL, Mawle AC, Reeves WC. Chronic multisymptom illness affecting Air Force veterans of the Gulf War. JAMA. 1998 Sep 16;280(11):981-8. doi: 10.1001/jama.280.11.981.
citation: Rayhan RU, Zheng Y, Uddin E, Timbol C, Adewuyi O, Baraniuk JN. Administer and collect medical questionnaires with Google documents: a simple, safe, and free system. Appl Med Inform. 2013;33(3):12-21.
citation: Rayhan RU, Ravindran MK, Baraniuk JN. Migraine in gulf war illness and chronic fatigue syndrome: prevalence, potential mechanisms, and evaluation. Front Physiol. 2013 Jul 24;4:181. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2013.00181. eCollection 2013.
citation: Rayhan RU, Stevens BW, Raksit MP, Ripple JA, Timbol CR, Adewuyi O, VanMeter JW, Baraniuk JN. Exercise challenge in Gulf War Illness reveals two subgroups with altered brain structure and function. PLoS One. 2013 Jun 14;8(6):e63903. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0063903. Print 2013.
citation: Rayhan RU, Stevens BW, Timbol CR, Adewuyi O, Walitt B, VanMeter JW, Baraniuk JN. Increased brain white matter axial diffusivity associated with fatigue, pain and hyperalgesia in Gulf War illness. PLoS One. 2013;8(3):e58493. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058493. Epub 2013 Mar 20.
citation: Narayan V, Shivapurkar N, Baraniuk JN. Informatics Inference of Exercise-Induced Modulation of Brain Pathways Based on Cerebrospinal Fluid Micro-RNAs in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Netw Syst Med. 2020 Nov 18;3(1):142-158. doi: 10.1089/nsm.2019.0009. eCollection 2020.