Multiple chemical sensitivity seen from physiological and genetic properties of human populations affected by chemical stress

1.143 (41.6 percent) of all 2.746 patients (visitors of my practise in Hamburg) between January 2000 and December 2003 answered a validated questionnaire about chemical symptoms called “modified QEESI”. The primary aim was the measurement and documentation of the scores of the first ten items named “sensitizing capabilities of chemicals” (SCC). Then without any medical information the molecularbiologist Dr. Eckart Schnakenberg (university of Bremen, director of the “Institute for Pharmacogenetics and Genetic Disposition” IPGD) analyzed the gene variants of the enzymes N-acetyltransferase 2, glutathione S-transferase M1, glutathione S-transferase T1. The single nucleotide polymorphisms of these genes of phase II in xenobiotic metabolism was analysed for 861 patients. After exclusion because age <20 years or age >90 years, psychiatrical and/or neurological diseases and ethnical causes remained 800 caucasian individuals for the casecontrol-study.