Over the past few years I've attended a few CFS-FMS conferences.
Invariably, there is at least one presenter that points out the
research finding that substance P is elevated in people with CFS-FMS.
Substance P levels in people with CFS-FMS is around 3 times higher
compared to substance P levels in the healthy control subjects.

Most of you may already be aware of this symptom of CFS-FMS; And know
that a rise in substance P is responsible for a heightened
sensitivity to pain signals. For some people with CFS-FMS, the
lightest touch of the skin can be painful.

In all these presentations there was never offered an explanation or
hypothesis as to why substance P is elevated; Only that it is.

In the last conference I attended, here in Salt Lake City, a local
doctor Dr. Lee Smith, who has devoted much of his practice to
treating people with CFS-FMS, presented some more interesting
information related to substance P. He said that substance P caused
sodium ion channels in nerve cells to remain open. When sodium
channels are open, sodium from the extracellular fluid (fluid outside
the cell) can flow into the cell. The sodium difuses into the cell
because a concentration gradient exists between extracellular sodium
levels and intracellular sodium levels.

The sodium-potassium pump, pumps 3 sodium ions out of the cell while
simultaneously pumping 2 potassium ions back into the cell. The
sodium potassium pump accounts for the greatest use of ATP, the fuel
that the cell uses to power processes inside the cell. If you recall
from the online presentation on the website, people with CFS-FMS are
typically low in ATP.

If the sodium channels are kept open, allowing sodium to freely flow
into the cell, more ATP would be used by the sodium-potassium pump to
keep pumping the sodium outside the cell. It is important that the
sodium concentration gradient be maintained since when sodium levels
inside the cell match sodium levels outside the cell there would be
little force keeping the sodium flowing inside the cell. The
increase in sodium levels inside nerve cells may interfere with nerve
impulses and may contribute to some of the symptoms of CFS-FMS that
have been linked to problems of the central nervous system.

Anyway, doing a google search I came across this bit of information
that may shed some light on why substance P levels are elevated.

"Findings help explain why low magnesium status is associated with
many health disorders. Human volunteers at the Grand Forks Human
Nutrition Research Center (GFHNRC), Grand Forks, North Dakota, were
fed diets containing inadequate, marginal, and adequate amounts of
magnesium over a 6 month period to ascertain whether a systemic
neurogenic inflammatory response is of primary importance during
magnesium deprivation. Magnesium deprivation resulted in elevated
circulating substance P; changes in the release of other neurogenic
peptides, including decreases in calcitonin generelated peptide and
neuropeptide Y; and an apparent increase in oxidative stress as
indicated by reduced circulating glutathione and increased
extracellular superoxide dismutase. These findings may be the reason
that numerous epidemiological findings and magnesium supplementation
trials show that a low magnesium status is associated with numerous
disorders including coronary heart disease, hypertension, migraine
headaches, sleep disorders, mood disturbances, and osteoporosis."
http://www.nps.ars.usda.gov/programs/programs.htm?
npnumber=107&docid=1073

(Some of you that post to the CFSFMExperimental group may want to
share the information from the above website on that group. It
suggests a possible cause of low glutathione level.)

The information on this site further supports the whole approach that
I've been suggesting. The FIR Sauna helps to increase metabolism and
the production of ATP. However, the FIR Sauna alone could exacerbate
the condition because in the process of all that sweating the body is
losing minerals, magnesium being one. It is also losing water, and
dehydration is an issue with CFS-FMS.

As some of you have found, not all supplements are absorbed equally
well. I prefer that a person get the nutrients the body needs from
food sources. I think that two minerals may need some additional
supplementation at least until things get back into balance,
magnesium is one of them.

A good food source for magnesium is sunflower seeds. I eat about 1/4
cup of sunflower seeds a day, taken in a drink. The recipe is in the
Files section. Give it a try and let me know what you think of it.

All the best,
Jim

PS: The two supplements I suggest are magnesium and zinc. If anyone
would like these I sell them at 20% less than you will find them sold
elsewhere. But without the FIR sauna, these supplements and the
other things I suggest are not as effective. To see the results that
others are seeing, the entire program needs to be followed.