Two Published Reports of Fibromyalgia Patients’ Low Metabolic Rates and Low Body Temperatures
Female fibromyalgia patients: Lower resting metabolic rates than matched healthy controls
Many features of fibromyalgia and hypothyroidism are virtually the same, and thyroid hormone treatment trials have reduced or eliminated fibromyalgia symptoms. These findings led the authors to test the hypothesis that fibromyalgia patients are hypometabolic compared to matched controls.
Lower resting metabolic rate and basal body temperature of fibromyalgia patients compared to matched healthy controls
All symptoms and most objectively verified abnormalities of fibromyalgia are common among patients with hypothyroidism or partial peripheral thyroid hormone resistance. In treatment trials, thyroid hormone therapy has reduced or eliminated fibromyalgia symptoms, and a long-term follow-up study showed that improvement with thyroid hormone therapy lasted 1-to-5 years.
In a previous study by the authors, solicited female fibromyalgia patients had significantly lower resting metabolic rates and basal body temperatures than matched healthy controls. In this study, the resting metabolic rates and body temperatures of fibromyalgia patients previously evaluated at a specialty metabolic clinic were compared with healthy controls to whom they were matched.
