Jason, Leonard A, Yoo, Samuel, Bhatia, Shaun · Chronic illness · 2022 · DOI
This study asked nearly 1,800 people with ME/CFS about infections they had before getting sick. About 60% of patients reported having an infection before their ME/CFS started, with mononucleosis being the most common. However, the study found that many different types of infections were reported, suggesting that ME/CFS might not be caused by just one infectious agent.
Understanding what infections might trigger ME/CFS is crucial for identifying at-risk patients and developing preventive strategies. This finding—that many different infections may lead to ME/CFS rather than just one—changes how researchers and doctors should think about the disease's origins and could help explain why ME/CFS affects people so differently.
This study does not prove that these infections actually cause ME/CFS—it only shows that patients remember having infections before getting sick. The study cannot distinguish between correlation and causation, and relies on patient memory and self-reported diagnoses without medical verification. It also cannot explain why some people develop ME/CFS after infection while others do not.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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