Liu, Patrick Z, Raizen, David M, Skarke, Carsten et al. · Sleep · 2025 · DOI
This study looked at whether the genetic factors that cause ME/CFS also influence fatigue levels in people without ME/CFS. Researchers compared movement patterns and body temperature rhythms in people with ME/CFS versus healthy controls, then checked if genetic variations linked to ME/CFS were also connected to fatigue in the general population. They found that people with ME/CFS showed significantly less movement and flatter daily temperature patterns, and some genetic variants associated with ME/CFS were also linked to fatigue symptoms in the broader population.
Understanding whether ME/CFS shares biological mechanisms with fatigue in the general population could accelerate research into disease pathophysiology and potentially identify new therapeutic targets. This study provides evidence that some genetic factors contributing to ME/CFS also influence fatigue in otherwise healthy people, bridging basic fatigue biology with ME/CFS-specific pathology. For patients, this suggests that insights from fatigue research broadly may yield relevant treatments for ME/CFS.
This study does not establish that fatigue in people without ME/CFS is caused by the same mechanisms as ME/CFS, only that some genetic variants are associated with both. The limited replication of CFS-associated variants in the general population (only 1-2 of 30 variants) suggests that most CFS biology may be distinct from population fatigue. The cross-sectional design cannot determine causality or whether genetic variants directly cause activity reductions or other outcomes.
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, Patrick Z, Raizen, David M, Skarke, Carsten, Brooks, Thomas G, & Anafi, Ron C (2025). Genetic variants associated with chronic fatigue syndrome predict population-level fatigue severity and actigraphic measurements.. Sleep. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsae243
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-liu-2025-genetic-variants,
author = {Liu, Patrick Z and Raizen, David M and Skarke, Carsten and Brooks, Thomas G and Anafi, Ron C},
title = {Genetic variants associated with chronic fatigue syndrome predict population-level fatigue severity and actigraphic measurements.},
journal = {Sleep},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1093/sleep/zsae243},
note = {PubMed: 39442002},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/liu-2025-genetic-variants},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-25. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/liu-2025-genetic-variants
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