Gan, Yunong, Ning, Ruihong, Zhang, Wen et al. · BMC microbiology · 2025 · DOI
Researchers studied fungi living in the gut of ME/CFS patients compared to healthy people across different age groups. They found that people with ME/CFS have different types and amounts of gut fungi than healthy people, and these differences vary depending on age. Using these fungal patterns, they could identify ME/CFS patients with high accuracy—especially when looking at people of similar ages—suggesting gut fungi might help diagnose the condition.
This study identifies fungal biomarkers that could improve ME/CFS diagnosis, particularly by demonstrating that age-specific analysis substantially enhances diagnostic accuracy. Understanding age-related differences in mycobiome dysbiosis may guide personalized diagnostic approaches and inform future research into whether correcting fungal imbalances could alleviate symptoms.
This study does not establish that altered gut fungi cause ME/CFS—the findings suggest fungi are biomarkers of disease burden rather than causative agents. The cross-sectional design cannot determine whether fungal changes precede disease onset or result from it. Additionally, findings from this population may not generalize to all ME/CFS patients, and the moderate overall accuracy without age stratification suggests fungal profiles alone are insufficient for diagnosis.
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
Gan, Yunong, Ning, Ruihong, Zhang, Wen, Xu, Yisha, Zhang, Siyuan, Zhang, Zhiyan, et al. (2025). Age-specific alterations of the gut mycobiome in patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and identification of potential diagnostic biomarkers.. BMC microbiology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12866-025-04650-9
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-gan-2025-age-specific,
author = {Gan, Yunong and Ning, Ruihong and Zhang, Wen and Xu, Yisha and Zhang, Siyuan and Zhang, Zhiyan and Xia, Jinglan and Dai, Min and Guo, Wei},
title = {Age-specific alterations of the gut mycobiome in patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and identification of potential diagnostic biomarkers.},
journal = {BMC microbiology},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1186/s12866-025-04650-9},
note = {PubMed: 41469536},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/gan-2025-age-specific},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/gan-2025-age-specific
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