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NYT article: "Why Do Allergies Cause ‘Brain Fog’?"

Art Vandelay

Senior Member
Messages
470
Location
Australia
While this article doesn't seem to contain any hard research, I thought the claim that brain fog in allergies could be caused by cytokines was moderately interesting. My gut feeling is that my ME/CFS brain fog is correlated with the inflammation I experience and thus may be due to cytokines.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/well/live/why-do-allergies-cause-brain-fog.html

Why Do Allergies Cause ‘Brain Fog’?
Ask Well

By KAREN WEINTRAUB APRIL 21, 2017

Q. When I have allergies or a cold, I find it difficult to think. How does sinus congestion affect the brain?

A. The short answer is no one really knows why people often report feeling “fuzzy headed” when they have allergies or a cold.
...
“The thought is allergies are essentially inflammation in the nose and sinuses,” said Dr. Mark Aronica, an allergist at the Cleveland Clinic. This inflammation triggers the release of proteins called cytokines as part of the immune response.

The same process happens when you have a cold. “These cytokines are there to help fight infection, and also have an impact on our ability to think and function and perform,” Dr. Aronica said. The result is that people with allergies or a bad cold often feel as if they are seeing the world through cheesecloth.
 

ljimbo423

Senior Member
Messages
4,705
Location
United States, New Hampshire
From the article-

The immune response can also contribute to fatigue. With allergies that are triggered for weeks or months at a time, “sleeping off” that exhaustion isn’t feasible, so treating the allergies is the best approach, Dr. Aronica said. “If you control the symptoms, that brain fog may go away.”

I have bad allergy symptoms, like constant congestion and runny nose, that came on with my cfs and worsened as my cfs did. However, I do not have any significant allergies to food (had testing done) or anything else in the environment that I am aware of. I have them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week regardless of where I am.

So they are most likely generated from something in me, all the time, not an outside factor. Probably caused by immune activation/dysfunction. There is very little doubt in my mind that an immune response causes much of the fatigue and brain fog, in cfs/me and like the fatigue from allergies, it can't be slept away.

Something else I find really interesting, is that immune activation can cause sleeping problems too, which it also mentions in the article. Here is another paper that mentions it.

Increasing evidence supports a reciprocal relationship between sleep and the immune system. An activated immune system alters sleep and sleep abnormalities affect immune function[29,30].
LINK