The SHC Medical Unit at Viamed Santa Ángela de la Cruz Hospital in Seville has just launched an applied clinical research project in collaboration with Dr. Francisco Martín Bermudo, Professor of Nutrition in Seville, with the aim of improving the treatment of patients with fibromyalgia. 100 patients will be recruited, divided into two groups (50 of them will follow the standard treatment and the other 50 the standard treatment plus a series of measures to improve certain parameters displaying alteration in these patients).

According to Dr. Martin, “we perform thermography (an infra-red camera that measures the body temperature in different parts of the body) on all of our patients. Usually, when the body temperature is higher in an area, if there is an inflammatory problem it translates into pain. Then, we check to see if the pain points reported by the patients match the thermographic areas, so that we can measure and control that pain”. Thermography thus has a link to inflammation and pain.

Likewise, “we perform calorimetry (a technique to measure the change in energy that accompanies a chemical or physical transformation), we measure their body composition – because we observe that these patients are intracellularly dehydrated and have cell mass problems -, we carry out physical exercise tests and we give them nutritional supplements”. Thus, in addition to the SHC immunological food test that determines what diet to follow, patients are given supplements with the nutrients they need based on the data from the study conducted.

“In addition, blood samples are taken to measure oxidative stress (which is also involved in the origin of fibromyalgia). By measuring oxidative stress we can tell if there has been improvement before and after.

This project is scheduled to last about six or seven months. In addition to the initial study, patients will be re-examined three months after treatment to see if they have improved. The ultimate goal is to achieve personalised parameters for each patient to improve their treatment.