Jason, L A, Taylor, R R, Kennedy, C L · Psychosomatic medicine · 2000 · DOI
This study looked at how often people with ME/CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) also have fibromyalgia or chemical sensitivities, and how these conditions affect daily functioning. Researchers interviewed nearly 19,000 people in Chicago and then examined those with CFS-like symptoms in more detail. They found that people with multiple conditions experienced worse fatigue and disability than those with just one condition.
This study demonstrates that ME/CFS frequently co-occurs with other debilitating conditions like fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivities, and that having multiple diagnoses substantially worsens fatigue and disability. Understanding these comorbidity patterns helps clinicians recognize overlapping symptom presentations and may improve patient care and resource allocation.
This cross-sectional design cannot establish causality or temporal relationships between conditions—it only shows associations at a single point in time. The study cannot determine whether one condition causes another, whether they share a common biological mechanism, or whether the lower comorbidity rates reflect true differences in disease occurrence versus differences in how cases were identified and defined. The relatively small final sample (32 CFS cases) limits generalizability to broader populations.
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
Jason, L A, Taylor, R R, & Kennedy, C L (2000). Chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and multiple chemical sensitivities in a community-based sample of persons with chronic fatigue syndrome-like symptoms.. Psychosomatic medicine. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006842-200009000-00009
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-jason-2000-chronic-fatigue-4,
author = {Jason, L A and Taylor, R R and Kennedy, C L},
title = {Chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and multiple chemical sensitivities in a community-based sample of persons with chronic fatigue syndrome-like symptoms.},
journal = {Psychosomatic medicine},
year = {2000},
doi = {10.1097/00006842-200009000-00009},
note = {PubMed: 11020095},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jason-2000-chronic-fatigue-4},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jason-2000-chronic-fatigue-4
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