Oosterwijck, Jessica Van, Marusic, Uros, De Wandele, Inge et al. · Pain physician · 2017
This study looked at why exercise doesn't reduce pain in people with ME/CFS the way it normally does in healthy people. Researchers measured how the nervous system recovered after exercise and tracked pain levels in 20 women with ME/CFS and 20 healthy women. They found that people with ME/CFS had problems with their nervous system's ability to 'turn off' after exercise, and this was connected to their pain not improving like it should.
Understanding why pain relief from exercise doesn't work normally in ME/CFS is crucial for developing better management strategies and explaining post-exertional malaise. This study identifies specific autonomic nervous system dysfunction as a potential mechanism, which could guide future treatments targeting parasympathetic recovery and blood pressure regulation.
This study cannot establish causation due to its cross-sectional design—it shows correlations between autonomic measures and pain, not that autonomic dysfunction directly causes dysfunctional analgesia. The findings come from a small sample of women only, so they may not generalize to men or larger populations. The study also cannot determine whether autonomic dysfunction is primary or secondary to other ME/CFS pathology.
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
Oosterwijck, Jessica Van, Marusic, Uros, De Wandele, Inge, Paul, Lorna, Meeus, Mira, Moorkens, Greta, et al. (2017). The Role of Autonomic Function in Exercise-induced Endogenous Analgesia: A Case-control Study in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Healthy People.. Pain physician. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28339438/
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-oosterwijck-2017-role-autonomic,
author = {Oosterwijck, Jessica Van and Marusic, Uros and De Wandele, Inge and Paul, Lorna and Meeus, Mira and Moorkens, Greta and Lambrecht, Luc and Danneels, Lieven and Nijs, Jo},
title = {The Role of Autonomic Function in Exercise-induced Endogenous Analgesia: A Case-control Study in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Healthy People.},
journal = {Pain physician},
year = {2017},
note = {PubMed: 28339438},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/oosterwijck-2017-role-autonomic},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/oosterwijck-2017-role-autonomic
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