Pain catastrophizing is associated with the Val66Met polymorphism of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor in fibromyalgia, da Silveira Alves , 2020

abstract, etc: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32736598/
open access: https://advancesinrheumatology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42358-020-00141-9

here is their conclusion...

 

More candidate gene association junk. Unless the SNP is highly specific (100% of cases as in rare genetic diseases), I just don't care.

 

If they have found a true association, they have shown there is a physical difference in how pain is handled by the nervous system not catastrophising which is a behaviour (the _ing gives it away!)

 

Do the people who write this kind of research not understand how humans work? Are they cyborgs or androids who don't understand what it is like to be human?

Fatigue : Being in pain is exhausting
Body stiffness : If someone has a sore shoulder (for example) they won't move it as much or as freely as someone without a sore shoulder - the body protects itself to try and prevent further damage. This is normal behaviour.
Sleep disturbances : Being in pain makes it difficult to get to sleep and may cause people to sleep fitfully. This is normal behaviour.
Depression : If someone is in dreadful pain and nobody believes them and they get no treatment then depression is inevitable.
Anxiety : Same as for depression - people may lose their jobs, their families, their homes because they are in so much pain they can't react normally to life and work and family.
Cognitive problems : Obviously mentioned by someone who has never suffered brain fog.
Pain catastrophizing : If your life turns to shit because of pain, with no help from anyone and no obvious way out, then pain catastrophizing is normal behaviour.

 

If a person were pain free and didn't want to go for a walk, go to work, unload the dishwasher because they were scared it might hurt then, maybe, consider the catastrophizing label.

If someone is in some discomfort and is scared to go to the dentist because it might hurt then that's maybe a little anxious about the dentist. Toothache is horrible, right?

However, if you are in so much pain, all the time that all you can do is think about the pain then this is not catastrophizing. It's called "being in a sh*tload of pain, all of the time."

 

This looks junk. 216 patients and controls and the key finding was that 80.6% of patients had the Val/Val genotype vs 71.3% of controls and that this correlated to pain catastrophizing.

Link to Table 2 : https://advancesinrheumatology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42358-020-00141-9/tables/2



This is the link to dbSNP that shows that the alt allele is a missense with consequence for the BDNF gene. Reference allele is 81% prevalence in European background but only 51% in Asian background. This study only recorded colour of skin which is not much help.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs6265

In conclusion I would say that a difference between 80.6% and 71.3% in 108 patients and 108 controls is not very significant when considering random probability.

 

Pain catastrophizing is just a diplomatic way of saying hypochondria, I'm sure Wessely would approve.

 

This isn't a "true association", it's the usual candidate gene association junk. I've never seen a study like this for any disease that wasn't complete trash.

(note the only true findings are in rare genetic diseases where they trace the candidate gene heritability with 100% specificity and sensitivity.

 

i dare them to write a paper on cancer related pain and calling it catastrophization. They only use catastrophizing for MUS, chronic pain, women related pain and central sensitization.

 

Didn't Chalder do one for cancer fatigue? Maybe not Chalder but I'm pretty sure there was one.

And, shocker, it was also unhelpful illness beliefs and basically "catastrophizing", aka "the stove is very hot and if I touch it it will hurt so bear with me but I will not touch the very hot stove that I know will hurt me".

Looking forward in the future to studies showing that it's catastrophizing that causes the pain from jumping down from a height of 10m. Silly patients, you just have to say NO! to the pain it isn't that hard.