Does this relate to autoimmune conditions too? Probably.  As many of you know stress is a major part of everyday life and there seems to be a consensus that society overall is a faster pace and with much more stress than a few generations ago. With the conveniences of modern technologies, people now expect to get more done in less time. However society has greater expectations on how much people do. Companies expect more work done by fewer employees and less down time. Family life is more stressful with more activities kids (and parents) are involved in. Let's not forget about the stress created by the situations with the schools and negative peer pressure.  What does this have to do with FM & CFS? Not to mention the other conditions commonly occuring with FM and CFS. Well traditionally stress was thought of to create "tension headaches", upset stomaches (ulcers), depression and other well known psychosomatic complaints (physical symptoms brought on by emotional stress which has no known physical cause). Now research is showing "stress" does not cause these conditions (ex. stomach ulcers are now found to be caused by a bacteria). However stress weakens the body so people are more prone to get an infection. People with stomach ulcers may be experiencing greater stress when they get the ulcer. The bacteria causes it but the stress caused the person's immune system to be weakened so the person got the bacteria. The medical and scientific community (as well as patients, families and friends) are all aware that stress and lifestyle effect any medical condition. This is true with FM and CFS. Stress and overdemanding schedules worsen symptoms of FM & CFS. Even environmental factors can trigger symptoms. These include pollution, types of foods consumed and chemicals added to the foods, chemicals exposed to on a daily basis, and weather changes. Apparently with the increase stress, decrease in natural support symptoms (family & friends) due to today's busy lifestyles and maybe the influence of environmental pollutin factors, have contributed to both the incidence of CFIDS and the severity of CFIDS cases.   The following email I received illustrates the difference in lifestyle. The writer of the email is a twin and her sister was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease while the writer is experiencing some symptoms but does not meet the criteria of the disease (hashimoto's thyroiditis). I do strongly suspect research will begin to reveal supportive evidence of this. Wow!! isn't that a "hoot!" I hadn't even noticed that you were a twin too! Now that's just plain wierd! Thanks for your thoughts. You actually may very well be right. My twin works at Ford's as an engineer. She has an extremely stressful job where as I own a small Dairy farm and I hardly have any stress! She travels overseas and puts on demos for big wigs and I fish at a pond. See the picture. You sound right about "subclinical"! Thanks again. Oh, and we have a cocker spaniel. Talking about stress and weakened immune system, I got an email from a doctor who specializes in CFIDS and is doing research on CFIDS. This may support the fact that stress does increase the likelihood of getting CFIDS by decreasing the immune system which increases risk of infection which can lead to getting CFIDS. Linda, Dr. Salit (Toronto) studied etiology of CFS and reported that 72% of cases had an infectious onset and up to 4.5% occurred after surgery or childbirth. Dr. Meirleir (Brussels) will soon publish a paper that virtually all CFS starts with infections, but frequently with another trigger, i.e., infection and stress or infection and pregnancy. CWLapp/tp 
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