Moneghetti, Kegan J, Skhiri, Mehdi, Contrepois, Kévin et al. · Scientific reports · 2018 · DOI
Researchers tested whether measuring immune chemicals (called cytokines) in the blood after exercise could help identify people with ME/CFS. They compared 24 people with ME/CFS to 24 healthy controls and measured 51 different immune markers both before and 18 hours after exercise. They found that the pattern of immune chemicals measured 18 hours after exercise was different enough to reliably distinguish people with ME/CFS from healthy people.
This research provides objective biological markers that could potentially help diagnose ME/CFS, a disease that currently lacks confirmatory tests and is often diagnosed only after excluding other conditions. Identifying immune abnormalities triggered by exercise may illuminate why patients experience post-exertional malaise and could guide future treatment strategies.
This study does not prove that these cytokine changes cause ME/CFS symptoms or post-exertional malaise—only that they correlate with the condition. The findings were from sedentary controls rather than healthy active individuals, so it remains unclear whether the immune profile distinguishes ME/CFS specifically or simply reflects differences in physical activity level. Results require validation in larger, more diverse populations before clinical implementation.
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
Moneghetti, Kegan J, Skhiri, Mehdi, Contrepois, Kévin, Kobayashi, Yukari, Maecker, Holden, Davis, Mark, et al. (2018). Value of Circulating Cytokine Profiling During Submaximal Exercise Testing in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.. Scientific reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20941-w
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-moneghetti-2018-value-circulating,
author = {Moneghetti, Kegan J and Skhiri, Mehdi and Contrepois, Kévin and Kobayashi, Yukari and Maecker, Holden and Davis, Mark and Snyder, Michael and Haddad, Francois and Montoya, Jose G},
title = {Value of Circulating Cytokine Profiling During Submaximal Exercise Testing in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.},
journal = {Scientific reports},
year = {2018},
doi = {10.1038/s41598-018-20941-w},
note = {PubMed: 29426834},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/moneghetti-2018-value-circulating},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/moneghetti-2018-value-circulating
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