Jason, Leonard A, Gaglio, Caroline L, Furst, Jacob et al. · Chronic illness · 2023 · DOI
Researchers studied immune system chemicals called cytokines in children and teens with ME/CFS by comparing blood samples from sick patients and healthy controls. They found that children with ME/CFS had different patterns of these immune chemicals compared to healthy kids, with certain inflammatory markers being more active. This suggests ME/CFS involves real biological changes in how the immune system works, particularly in severe cases.
This study provides biological evidence that ME/CFS involves measurable immune system abnormalities in children, potentially moving toward an objective biomarker for diagnosis. Identifying specific cytokine patterns could help distinguish ME/CFS from other pediatric conditions and may guide future immunological treatments. The finding that severe ME/CFS has distinct inflammatory signatures suggests disease severity has biological underpinnings worth investigating.
This study does not establish whether the cytokine differences cause ME/CFS symptoms or result from the illness—it only shows they are associated. The cross-sectional design cannot demonstrate how cytokine networks change over time or whether these patterns predict disease progression. These findings require validation in larger, independent pediatric populations before cytokine networks could be clinically useful 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 →
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, Gaglio, Caroline L, Furst, Jacob, Islam, Mohammed, Sorenson, Matthew, Conroy, Karl E, et al. (2023). Cytokine network analysis in a community-based pediatric sample of patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.. Chronic illness. https://doi.org/10.1177/17423953221101606
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-jason-2023-cytokine-network,
author = {Jason, Leonard A and Gaglio, Caroline L and Furst, Jacob and Islam, Mohammed and Sorenson, Matthew and Conroy, Karl E and Katz, Ben Z},
title = {Cytokine network analysis in a community-based pediatric sample of patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.},
journal = {Chronic illness},
year = {2023},
doi = {10.1177/17423953221101606},
note = {PubMed: 35570777},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jason-2023-cytokine-network},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jason-2023-cytokine-network
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