Lyle, Nazmun, Gomes, Antony, Sur, Tapas et al. · Behavioural brain research · 2009 · DOI
Researchers used rats to test whether an herbal extract from Nardostachys jatamansi (a plant used in traditional medicine) could help with fatigue-like symptoms and stress. Rats that were forced to swim daily for three weeks developed behaviors similar to depression and anxiety, along with signs of cellular damage from oxidative stress. The herbal extract appeared to reduce these symptoms and restore balance to the rats' stress-fighting systems.
This study provides mechanistic evidence that oxidative stress—an imbalance between harmful free radicals and protective antioxidants—may contribute to fatigue and mood symptoms in CFS. If oxidative stress is indeed involved in ME/CFS pathology, natural or synthetic antioxidant treatments could become therapeutic targets worth investigating in human trials.
This is an animal model study and does not prove that the same mechanisms or treatments work in ME/CFS patients. The forced-swim model mimics some stress responses but does not replicate the complex, multi-system pathology of human ME/CFS, and botanical extracts tested in rats often show limited efficacy when studied in humans.
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
Lyle, Nazmun, Gomes, Antony, Sur, Tapas, Munshi, Santanu, Paul, Suhrita, Chatterjee, Suparna, et al. (2009). The role of antioxidant properties of Nardostachys jatamansi in alleviation of the symptoms of the chronic fatigue syndrome.. Behavioural brain research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2009.04.005
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-lyle-2009-role-antioxidant,
author = {Lyle, Nazmun and Gomes, Antony and Sur, Tapas and Munshi, Santanu and Paul, Suhrita and Chatterjee, Suparna and Bhattacharyya, Dipankar},
title = {The role of antioxidant properties of Nardostachys jatamansi in alleviation of the symptoms of the chronic fatigue syndrome.},
journal = {Behavioural brain research},
year = {2009},
doi = {10.1016/j.bbr.2009.04.005},
note = {PubMed: 19375459},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/lyle-2009-role-antioxidant},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-25. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/lyle-2009-role-antioxidant
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