Liu, Tingting, Sun, Weibo, Guo, Shuhao et al. · Autonomic neuroscience : basic & clinical · 2024 · DOI
This review examines what scientists currently understand about ME/CFS—a debilitating condition characterized by extreme fatigue that doesn't improve with rest, along with other symptoms like muscle pain, sore throat, and sleep problems. The authors looked at research on possible causes (like viral infections, stress, and immune system problems) and discussed how both conventional medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine approaches might help treat the condition.
This review is important because ME/CFS remains poorly understood and lacks effective treatments, leaving patients with limited options. By examining both Western medical and TCM perspectives on underlying mechanisms, it may help clinicians develop more comprehensive treatment strategies and guide future research into novel therapeutic targets.
This review does not prove that any specific cause definitively leads to ME/CFS, nor does it establish that any single treatment is effective—it only synthesizes existing research. The findings cannot determine causation versus correlation, and TCM approaches described would require rigorous clinical trials to demonstrate efficacy compared to placebo or standard care.
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
Liu, Tingting, Sun, Weibo, Guo, Shuhao, Chen, Tao, Zhu, Minghang, Yuan, Zhiying, et al. (2024). Research progress on pathogenesis of chronic fatigue syndrome and treatment of traditional Chinese and Western medicine.. Autonomic neuroscience : basic & clinical. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autneu.2024.103198
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-liu-2024-research-progress,
author = {Liu, Tingting and Sun, Weibo and Guo, Shuhao and Chen, Tao and Zhu, Minghang and Yuan, Zhiying and Li, Binbin and Lu, Jing and Shao, Yuying and Qu, Yuanyuan and Sun, Zhongren and Feng, Chuwen and Yang, Tiansong},
title = {Research progress on pathogenesis of chronic fatigue syndrome and treatment of traditional Chinese and Western medicine.},
journal = {Autonomic neuroscience : basic & clinical},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.1016/j.autneu.2024.103198},
note = {PubMed: 39047501},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/liu-2024-research-progress},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-25. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/liu-2024-research-progress
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