Collin, Simon M, Norris, Tom, Gringras, Paul et al. · Sleep medicine · 2018 · DOI
This study tracked children from birth through their teenage years to see if sleep problems in childhood were linked to developing ME/CFS later on. Researchers found that children who slept less at night during early childhood were more likely to develop chronic disabling fatigue as teenagers, and those with trouble falling asleep were at higher risk. Each extra hour of sleep at age 9 or 11 was associated with a significantly lower chance of developing the condition.
Understanding whether sleep problems precede and potentially contribute to ME/CFS could redirect clinical attention toward early sleep intervention in at-risk children. This is among the first longitudinal evidence suggesting sleep abnormalities might have a causal role rather than being solely a symptom of the illness. Identifying modifiable risk factors like sleep duration could inform prevention or early treatment strategies.
This study does not prove that poor sleep *causes* ME/CFS—it shows they are associated. Sleep problems and ME/CFS may both result from a shared underlying biological problem. The study cannot rule out that early difficulty sleeping and later fatigue share a common genetic or neurobiological cause rather than one causing the other.
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
Collin, Simon M, Norris, Tom, Gringras, Paul, Blair, Peter S, Tilling, Kate, & Crawley, Esther (2018). Childhood sleep and adolescent chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME): evidence of associations in a UK birth cohort.. Sleep medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2018.01.005
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-collin-2018-childhood-sleep,
author = {Collin, Simon M and Norris, Tom and Gringras, Paul and Blair, Peter S and Tilling, Kate and Crawley, Esther},
title = {Childhood sleep and adolescent chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME): evidence of associations in a UK birth cohort.},
journal = {Sleep medicine},
year = {2018},
doi = {10.1016/j.sleep.2018.01.005},
note = {PubMed: 29773208},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/collin-2018-childhood-sleep},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/collin-2018-childhood-sleep
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