Jason, Leonard A, Conroy, Karl E, Furst, Jacob et al. · Molecular omics · 2022 · DOI
This study looked at blood samples taken from college students before they got sick to see if certain chemical markers could predict who would recover from mononucleosis and who would develop ME/CFS instead. Researchers found that people who later developed ME/CFS had different levels of certain chemicals in their blood before they even got sick, particularly those involved in energy production and immune function. Using a computer model based on these chemical differences, they could correctly predict with 97% accuracy which people would recover and which would develop ME/CFS.
This study provides evidence that ME/CFS susceptibility may have detectable metabolic signatures present before illness onset, suggesting biological predisposition rather than purely infectious trigger. Identifying pre-illness metabolic markers could enable risk stratification and early intervention strategies for vulnerable individuals exposed to triggering infections. These findings support the biological basis of ME/CFS and highlight specific metabolic pathways as potential therapeutic targets.
This study does not prove that these metabolic differences cause ME/CFS—they may be correlates or markers of underlying vulnerability. The findings cannot explain the mechanism by which these metabolic differences lead to persistent illness after infection. Results require validation in independent cohorts and different populations before clinical application; the high accuracy may not generalize beyond this specific college-age population.
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, Leonard A, Conroy, Karl E, Furst, Jacob, Vasan, Karthik, & Katz, Ben Z (2022). Pre-illness data reveals differences in multiple metabolites and metabolic pathways in those who do and do not recover from infectious mononucleosis.. Molecular omics. https://doi.org/10.1039/d2mo00124a
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-jason-2022-pre-illness,
author = {Jason, Leonard A and Conroy, Karl E and Furst, Jacob and Vasan, Karthik and Katz, Ben Z},
title = {Pre-illness data reveals differences in multiple metabolites and metabolic pathways in those who do and do not recover from infectious mononucleosis.},
journal = {Molecular omics},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.1039/d2mo00124a},
note = {PubMed: 35640165},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jason-2022-pre-illness},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jason-2022-pre-illness
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