Jason, Leonard A, Natelson, Benjamin H, Bonilla, Hector et al. · Brain behavior and immunity integrative · 2023 · DOI
This article reviews 40 years of research on ME/CFS to provide guidance for scientists studying Long COVID. The authors explain how ME/CFS researchers have developed reliable ways to diagnose the illness, define symptoms, and measure severity—lessons that can help Long COVID researchers do the same. By learning from ME/CFS experience, Long COVID researchers may be able to diagnose patients earlier, understand what causes the illness, and find treatments that actually work.
For ME/CFS patients, this article is important because it validates four decades of work establishing rigorous diagnostic standards and emphasizes that ME/CFS and Long COVID likely share similar research needs. For researchers, this paper provides a roadmap for developing more consistent and reliable ways to diagnose and study Long COVID, which could lead to faster discovery of treatments and better patient outcomes.
This article does not prove that ME/CFS and Long COVID are identical diseases or that all ME/CFS treatments will work for Long COVID patients. It is a review of methodological approaches rather than a study providing new clinical or biological evidence. The recommendations offered are based on expert synthesis rather than new experimental or observational data.
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, Natelson, Benjamin H, Bonilla, Hector, Sherif, Zaki A, Vernon, Suzanne D, Gutierrez, Monica Verduzco, et al. (2023). What Long COVID investigators can learn from four decades of ME/CFS research.. Brain behavior and immunity integrative. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbii.2023.100022
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-jason-2023-what-long,
author = {Jason, Leonard A and Natelson, Benjamin H and Bonilla, Hector and Sherif, Zaki A and Vernon, Suzanne D and Gutierrez, Monica Verduzco and O'Brien, Lisa and Taylor, Emily},
title = {What Long COVID investigators can learn from four decades of ME/CFS research.},
journal = {Brain behavior and immunity integrative},
year = {2023},
doi = {10.1016/j.bbii.2023.100022},
note = {PubMed: 40791853},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jason-2023-what-long},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/jason-2023-what-long
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