Belcaro, Gianni, Cox, David, Cesarone, Maria R et al. · Minerva surgery · 2023 · DOI
This study tested whether Robuvit®, an oak wood extract supplement, could help reduce fatigue in people recovering from chemotherapy for colon cancer. Over six weeks, patients taking Robuvit® showed greater improvements in tiredness, strength, fitness, and mood compared to those receiving standard care alone, with no reported side effects.
While this study focuses on chemotherapy-related fatigue rather than ME/CFS specifically, it provides preliminary evidence that oak wood extract may reduce persistent fatigue and oxidative stress. For ME/CFS researchers and patients, understanding interventions that reduce fatigue and improve functional capacity—especially those targeting oxidative stress—could inform future mechanistic and therapeutic investigations.
This study does not establish that Robuvit® is effective for ME/CFS, as it enrolled cancer patients in acute post-chemotherapy recovery rather than people with ME/CFS. The open-label design with no blinding means results could be influenced by placebo effect or expectancy bias. Registry studies cannot prove causation, only association, and the improvements observed could partly reflect natural recovery from chemotherapy rather than the supplement's specific effects.
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
Belcaro, Gianni, Cox, David, Cesarone, Maria R, Scipione, Claudia, Scipione, Valeria, Dugall, Mark, et al. (2023). Robuvit® reduces fatigue after chemotherapy for colon cancer. A pilot registry study.. Minerva surgery. https://doi.org/10.23736/S2724-5691.23.09885-4
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-belcaro-2023-robuvit-reduces,
author = {Belcaro, Gianni and Cox, David and Cesarone, Maria R and Scipione, Claudia and Scipione, Valeria and Dugall, Mark and Hu, Shu and Corsi, Marcello and Cornelli, Umberto and Feragalli, Beatrice and Cotellese, Roberto and Selvaggi, Federico},
title = {Robuvit® reduces fatigue after chemotherapy for colon cancer. A pilot registry study.},
journal = {Minerva surgery},
year = {2023},
doi = {10.23736/S2724-5691.23.09885-4},
note = {PubMed: 36995285},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/belcaro-2023-robuvit-reduces},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/belcaro-2023-robuvit-reduces
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