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The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) is sponsering research on the abnormalities that cause and are associated with fibromyalgia. It is there hope to find an effective way to diagnose, treat, and cure this disorder.

Most of the research has been devoted to the study of the mechanisms that manage pain. People with fibromyalgia have been known to possess a high level of substance P in their spinal cords. This causes a super sensitive state which take small pain and multiplies it. These people have also been found to have a higher than normal nerve growth factor in their spinal fluid. The scientists believe there is a link between this and the production of substance P and the disordered sleep patterns which often accompany fibromyalia.

It has also been found that there is a lower than normal blood flow to two areas of the brain which regulate pain via the central nervous system. Researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee are using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) techniques to study patients with fibromyalgia.

On March 13, 1997 United States Senators Tom Harkin (R-IA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) introduced the National Fund for Health Research Act. This act will establish a National Fund for Health Research to provide additional resources for health research over and above those provided to the National Institute of Health in the annual appropriations process. The goal is to enhance the quality of health care by investing more in finding preventive measures, cures, and conditions that strike Americans.

Stepen I. Katz, MD, PhD, who is the director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) states that his organization along with the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) sponsor the majority of the research on fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.

In July 1996, NIAMS sponsered a scientific workshop that explored recent advances in the neuroscience and endocrinology of fibromyalgia. The research was published in Arthritis and Rheumatism, Vol. 40, No. 11, November 1997. NIAMS has since issued a request for applications inviting research applications in fibromyalgia which should promote investigative research projects and developmental projects needed for the treatment of this disorder.

The NIH is sponsoring several initiatives aimed at two major symptoms related to fibromyalgia--pain and sleep disturbances.

Pain has become an integral part of the agenda of NIH with research being performed at every level--from gene, molecule, cell, organ, to the human organism itself. More than $70 million has been spent on this research alone by 15 institutes, centers, and offices, not to mention the billions of dollars spent on research aimed at preventing and treating the diseases and disorders that cause pain.

Sleep Disturbances is another area that NIH and NIAMA is concerned with. NIAMS has recently awarded two grants as a result of a request for applications issued by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Insitute. These grants are aimed at the molecular and genetic basis of sleep and sleep disorders.