Kidd, Elizabeth, Brown, Abigail, McManimen, Stephanie et al. · Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2016 · DOI
This study looked at how age and how long someone has had ME/CFS might affect their symptoms and daily functioning. Researchers divided patients into four groups based on whether they were younger or older than 55, and whether they'd had the illness for more or less than 10 years. Interestingly, older patients who had lived with ME/CFS for over 10 years reported better mental health functioning than the other groups, while younger patients with longer illness duration experienced worse immune and nervous system symptoms compared to older patients with similar illness duration.
Understanding how age and illness duration influence ME/CFS symptoms could help clinicians provide more personalized care and set appropriate expectations for patients at different life stages and disease stages. This research suggests that younger patients with long-standing disease may need particular attention to immune and autonomic symptoms, which could guide treatment priorities.
This study cannot establish causation or explain why these age-related and duration-related patterns exist. It does not prove that having ME/CFS longer causes better mental health outcomes—alternative explanations include survivor bias, increased coping resources over time, or differences in illness severity between groups. Longitudinal follow-up would be needed to determine how individual patients' symptoms and functioning change over time.
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
Kidd, Elizabeth, Brown, Abigail, McManimen, Stephanie, Jason, Leonard A, Newton, Julia L, & Strand, Elin Bolle (2016). The Relationship between Age and Illness Duration in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.. Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland). https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics6020016
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-kidd-2016-relationship-between,
author = {Kidd, Elizabeth and Brown, Abigail and McManimen, Stephanie and Jason, Leonard A and Newton, Julia L and Strand, Elin Bolle},
title = {The Relationship between Age and Illness Duration in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.},
journal = {Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland)},
year = {2016},
doi = {10.3390/diagnostics6020016},
note = {PubMed: 27110826},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/kidd-2016-relationship-between},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/kidd-2016-relationship-between
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