LONDON (Reuters) - Veterans of the Gulf War have more health problems and illnesses than other men and women in the armed services, British doctors said on Thursday.

One of the largest studies done into "Gulf War Syndrome" also showed that the number of injections the veterans received during the 1991 conflict and the amount of time they spent handling pesticides were correlated with specific symptoms of the mysterious illness.

"There seems to be a definite shift toward ill health in those who went to the Gulf, with about 14 percent more than you would expect in the ill category," Dr. Nicola Cherry, a specialist in occupational and environmental health, told Reuters.

The study of more than 14,000 men and women showed that the 9,000 veterans of the Gulf War had many more health problems than their colleagues seven years after the war.

"There is strong evidence that people who went to the Gulf have had a change in their health in the wrong direction. They are less well than if they hadn't been (to the Gulf)," Cherry, of the University of Manchester, added.

The study reported in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a monthly medical journal, found that the number of inoculations or immunizations the veterans had received was proportional to their health problems.

Veterans who had handled pesticides also suffered more nerve damage.

MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS WITH VARIED SYMPTOMS

Gulf War Syndrome covers a variety of symptoms ranging from tiredness, convulsions and respiratory and digestive problems to nerve damage, pain, numbness and psychological difficulties.

The causes of the mysterious syndrome have been hotly debated and linked variously to the inoculations the veterans received, pesticides they handled, smoke from oil burning fires, stress and organophosphates -- chemicals that have been shown to affect the human nervous system.

But the study found no direct link between the symptoms and the suspected causes nor the mechanism by which they might be linked.

The veterans who took part in the study answered questions about 95 symptoms. Nerve damage and widespread pain were twice as common among the Gulf veterans as among their colleagues.

Inoculations were associated with more skin and muscle complaints. Although the researchers said the Gulf veterans showed a significant decline in health, the number of deaths or hospital admissions in the group was not higher than the other servicemen and women.

"In one of the biggest and most complete studies that has been done there is evidence that the people who went to the Gulf have more health concerns that those who didn't," said Cherry.

She and her colleagues called for more research in the impact of pesticides and inoculations on the health of veterans.

Nearly one million servicemen and women were deployed to the Gulf between August 1990 and February 1991 to oppose the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Within months of returning veterans started reporting health problems.

 There is more known about the cause effect relationship of GWI than is being stated, mainly because US industries cover up these effects, slow the research, and styme proper reporting.

 It is well known that many of the GW toxics concentrate in the lymph nodes and there damage the mitochondria of immune protective cells and this effect leads to a wide variety of diseases from the damage to the pathogen destruction cells, to the false signaling effects from cytokine response that control cell apoptosis.RIsing viral effects also affect apoptotic signaling.

It is also well known that many of these toxic effects are additive in the lymph node toxic effects, and that it is worst in the lung dose.It is also well known that many of these toxic materials have very long internal retention time and many are lifetime doses that contribute to early aging and disease.

The illness patterns are not mysterious, except by the fabrications of US politics and medical research that disingenuously "seeks, but not to find" the real causes.

GWI or GWS officially exist and so do the toxic cause and effect mechanisms.