Galland, Leo · Journal of medicinal food · 2014 · DOI
Your gut bacteria can communicate with your brain in several ways: they produce substances that trigger your immune system, create chemicals that affect your mood and sleep, and send signals directly to your brain through a major nerve called the vagus nerve. When the balance of gut bacteria is disrupted, this communication can go wrong and may contribute to problems like chronic fatigue, brain fog, and mood changes.
ME/CFS patients frequently experience sleep disturbances, cognitive dysfunction, and mood changes, symptoms potentially linked to gut-brain communication. This review provides a mechanistic framework for understanding how microbiome dysbiosis could contribute to these core ME/CFS symptoms and suggests that dietary or microbial interventions may be therapeutically relevant—an area of active clinical interest.
This is a mechanistic review, not an empirical study with patient data; it does not prove that microbiome dysfunction causes ME/CFS or that microbiome-directed interventions effectively treat the disease. The review identifies plausible biological pathways but does not establish causation or demonstrate that correcting dysbiosis improves ME/CFS outcomes. Individual patient heterogeneity means these mechanisms may not apply equally to all ME/CFS presentations.
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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Primary citation
Galland, Leo (2014). The gut microbiome and the brain.. Journal of medicinal food. https://doi.org/10.1089/jmf.2014.7000
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-galland-2014-gut-microbiome,
author = {Galland, Leo},
title = {The gut microbiome and the brain.},
journal = {Journal of medicinal food},
year = {2014},
doi = {10.1089/jmf.2014.7000},
note = {PubMed: 25402818},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/galland-2014-gut-microbiome},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/galland-2014-gut-microbiome
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