Dansie, Elizabeth J, Furberg, Helena, Afari, Niloofar et al. · Psychosomatics · 2012 · DOI
This study looked at how often ME/CFS occurs together with other conditions like chronic widespread pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and depression in a general population sample. Researchers found that people with ME/CFS-like illness were about 14 times more likely to have at least one of these three conditions compared to those without them. The study suggests that these conditions frequently occur together with ME/CFS, but it did not find that having these additional conditions made the ME/CFS itself fundamentally different.
Understanding which conditions commonly co-occur with ME/CFS helps patients and clinicians recognize that having multiple overlapping symptoms is typical rather than unusual. This population-based approach provides more representative data than clinic samples, which may overrepresent severely affected individuals. The findings support the clinical reality that ME/CFS rarely occurs in isolation and may inform more comprehensive treatment approaches.
This study cannot determine whether comorbid conditions cause ME/CFS, result from it, or share common underlying mechanisms—it only documents that they occur together. Because of its cross-sectional design, temporal relationships cannot be established except where participants specifically reported timing. The findings do not explain why some people develop these combinations while others do not, nor do they identify mechanisms linking these 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
Dansie, Elizabeth J, Furberg, Helena, Afari, Niloofar, Buchwald, Dedra, Edwards, Karen, Goldberg, Jack, et al. (2012). Conditions comorbid with chronic fatigue in a population-based sample.. Psychosomatics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psym.2011.04.001
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-dansie-2012-conditions-comorbid,
author = {Dansie, Elizabeth J and Furberg, Helena and Afari, Niloofar and Buchwald, Dedra and Edwards, Karen and Goldberg, Jack and Schur, Ellen and Sullivan, Patrick F},
title = {Conditions comorbid with chronic fatigue in a population-based sample.},
journal = {Psychosomatics},
year = {2012},
doi = {10.1016/j.psym.2011.04.001},
note = {PubMed: 22221720},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/dansie-2012-conditions-comorbid},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/dansie-2012-conditions-comorbid
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