Gulf War Illness and the Fluoroquinolone Question
During the Gulf War, large numbers of deployed troops, particularly Marines, were ordered to take a powerful antibiotic as a prophylactic against anthrax. We are talking about 500mg twice a day for over 40 days in some cases. That is a prolonged, high-dose course of a drug that the FDA eventually put a black box warning on for causing disabling, sometimes permanent damage to tendons, connective tissue, the nervous system, and the gut.
The condition that results from this kind of antibiotic damage has its own name. The symptoms include chronic musculoskeletal pain, tendinopathies, peripheral neuropathy, cognitive dysfunction, fatigue, and GI problems.
Sound familiar? Those are also the hallmark symptoms of Gulf War Illness.
The mechanistic overlap is striking. Both conditions involve mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress. The same supplements being investigated for one are being studied for the other. These may not be two separate diseases with an odd symptom resemblance. They may be the same underlying biology wearing two different labels.
For any veteran living with chronic unexplained multisystem illness, one question has never been adequately answered.
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Authored by Gerard Guillory, MD
Gerard Guillory, MD, is a board-certified internist who practiced for nearly four decades with a focus on functional, root-cause medicine. He is the author of three books on irritable bowel syndrome and the founder of It’s My Health, where he and his team put current health news in context and help members understand the underlying causes of chronic symptoms.
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