Kempke, Stefan, Luyten, Patrick, De Coninck, Sarah et al. · Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2015 · DOI
This study looked at whether traumatic experiences in childhood are connected to how the body's stress system (the HPA axis) works in people with ME/CFS. Researchers measured stress hormone levels in 40 women with ME/CFS and tested how their bodies responded to stress. They found that emotional neglect in childhood was linked to a blunted (reduced) stress response, suggesting that some ME/CFS patients may have a stress system that doesn't react normally to challenges.
Understanding the role of early trauma in ME/CFS neurobiology may help explain why some patients have abnormal stress responses. These findings suggest that emotional neglect could be an important factor in the loss of adaptive stress capacity seen in ME/CFS, potentially informing more targeted psychological and clinical approaches to treatment.
This study does not prove that emotional neglect causes ME/CFS or definitively causes blunted stress responses—it only shows an association in this small sample. It cannot establish causation or generalize findings to male patients or those without childhood emotional neglect. The cross-sectional design means we cannot determine the direction or mechanism of the relationship.
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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