McBride, S J, McCluskey, D R · British medical bulletin · 1991 · DOI
This review examines different treatments that doctors have tried for ME/CFS, a condition marked by severe tiredness and other ongoing symptoms. Because the exact cause of ME/CFS isn't yet known, it's challenging to design treatments that target the underlying problem. The authors discuss various treatment approaches and the difficulties involved in managing this complicated illness.
This review provides historical perspective on early ME/CFS treatment development and highlights a fundamental challenge that persisted into the 1990s: the difficulty in developing effective therapies when the disease mechanism remains unknown. Understanding this gap between treatment attempts and mechanistic understanding remains relevant to current ME/CFS research.
This review does not provide evidence that any specific treatment is effective for ME/CFS, nor does it establish causation for the syndrome. As a narrative review rather than a clinical trial or systematic analysis, it reflects available practices of the era but does not prove their efficacy or safety.
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
McBride, S J & McCluskey, D R (1991). Treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome.. British medical bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a072519
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-mcbride-1991-treatment-chronic,
author = {McBride, S J and McCluskey, D R},
title = {Treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome.},
journal = {British medical bulletin},
year = {1991},
doi = {10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a072519},
note = {PubMed: 1794089},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/mcbride-1991-treatment-chronic},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/mcbride-1991-treatment-chronic
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