Bragée, Björn, Michos, Anastasios, Drum, Brandon et al. · Frontiers in neurology · 2020 · DOI
Researchers studied 229 people with severe ME/CFS to see if three physical conditions—unusual flexibility in joints, increased pressure around the brain, and blockages in the neck—might be connected to ME/CFS symptoms. They found these conditions were much more common in ME/CFS patients than in the general population. The study suggests these physical changes could help explain why people with ME/CFS experience their symptoms, though more research is needed to confirm this connection.
This study provides potential structural explanations for ME/CFS symptoms that have previously been poorly understood, which could lead to new diagnostic criteria and targeted treatments. If confirmed, it suggests that investigating the nervous system's physical architecture—not just biochemistry—should be part of ME/CFS evaluation and management. For patients, this work validates that their symptoms may have identifiable physiological causes amenable to medical intervention.
This study does not prove that hypermobility, intracranial hypertension, or craniocervical obstructions directly cause ME/CFS symptoms—it only shows these conditions occur together more often than expected. The cross-sectional design cannot establish causality or determine whether these findings apply to milder cases of ME/CFS or broader populations. Without control groups matched for age, sex, and other factors, it remains unclear how specific these findings are to ME/CFS versus other 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 →
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