Aroniadis, Olga C, Brandt, Lawrence J · Current opinion in gastroenterology · 2013 · DOI
This review examines fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), a treatment that restores healthy gut bacteria by transferring stool from a healthy donor to a patient. While FMT works very well for a specific bacterial infection, researchers are exploring whether it might help with other conditions including gut disorders and diseases affecting other parts of the body, such as chronic fatigue syndrome. The authors emphasize that more research is needed before FMT can be widely used for conditions beyond its proven application.
This review is significant for ME/CFS because it explicitly identifies chronic fatigue syndrome as a condition potentially linked to dysbiosis and amenable to microbiota-based interventions. Understanding the role of gut microbiota dysfunction in ME/CFS pathogenesis could open new treatment avenues and provides a framework for why some ME/CFS patients report GI symptoms. The recognition that intestinal microbiota influences cellular immunity and energy metabolism directly relates to core ME/CFS pathophysiology.
This review does not establish that FMT is an effective or safe treatment for ME/CFS, only that dysbiosis has been implicated in its pathogenesis and that further research is warranted. The paper does not prove causation between microbiota imbalance and chronic fatigue syndrome—only that an association has been observed and deserves investigation. Being a 2013 review, it does not include more recent controlled trials of FMT in ME/CFS or related conditions.
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 →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Aroniadis, Olga C & Brandt, Lawrence J (2013). Fecal microbiota transplantation: past, present and future.. Current opinion in gastroenterology. https://doi.org/10.1097/MOG.0b013e32835a4b3e
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-aroniadis-2013-fecal-microbiota,
author = {Aroniadis, Olga C and Brandt, Lawrence J},
title = {Fecal microbiota transplantation: past, present and future.},
journal = {Current opinion in gastroenterology},
year = {2013},
doi = {10.1097/MOG.0b013e32835a4b3e},
note = {PubMed: 23041678},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/aroniadis-2013-fecal-microbiota},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/aroniadis-2013-fecal-microbiota
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