Powers, John P, McIntee, Tomas J, Bhatia, Abhishek et al. · Communications medicine · 2025 · DOI
Researchers compared medical records from millions of patients to see how Long COVID (PASC) and ME/CFS are similar and different. They found that both conditions share common symptoms like fatigue, breathing difficulties, and trouble concentrating, but Long COVID tends to have more heart and lung problems, while ME/CFS more often involves pain and sleep issues. These similarities suggest that some treatment approaches might help both conditions.
Understanding the overlap between ME/CFS and Long COVID could accelerate treatment development and help clinicians recognize these conditions earlier. This large-scale analysis provides evidence that ME/CFS patients and PASC patients share substantial pathophysiological features, potentially opening doors to shared therapeutic strategies. The findings validate that ME/CFS and Long COVID warrant coordinated research and clinical attention.
This study cannot establish causation or determine whether PASC and ME/CFS are the same disease with different triggers or truly distinct conditions. The analysis relies on recorded diagnoses and symptoms in medical records, which may not capture all patient experiences or reflect actual disease mechanisms. EHR data cannot confirm whether observed similarities reflect shared biological pathways or simply overlapping clinical presentations.
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 →
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Primary citation
Powers, John P, McIntee, Tomas J, Bhatia, Abhishek, Madlock-Brown, Charisse R, Seltzer, Jaime, Sekar, Anisha, et al. (2025). Identifying commonalities and differences between EHR representations of PASC and ME/CFS in the RECOVER EHR cohort.. Communications medicine. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43856-025-00827-5
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-powers-2025-identifying-commonalities,
author = {Powers, John P and McIntee, Tomas J and Bhatia, Abhishek and Madlock-Brown, Charisse R and Seltzer, Jaime and Sekar, Anisha and Jain, Nita and Hornig, Mady and Seibert, Elle and Leese, Peter J and Haendel, Melissa and Moffitt, Richard and Pfaff, Emily R and N3C Consortium and RECOVER-EHR},
title = {Identifying commonalities and differences between EHR representations of PASC and ME/CFS in the RECOVER EHR cohort.},
journal = {Communications medicine},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1038/s43856-025-00827-5},
note = {PubMed: 40210986},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/powers-2025-identifying-commonalities},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/powers-2025-identifying-commonalities
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