Sarzi-Puttini, Piercarlo, Atzeni, Fabiola, Di Franco, Manuela et al. · Clinical and experimental rheumatology · 2012
This review looked at several long-lasting conditions that cause widespread pain, tiredness, sleep problems, and difficulty concentrating—conditions that don't always show up clearly on standard medical tests. The researchers examined fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, and irritable bowel syndrome to understand how they're connected and what causes symptoms to keep happening. They found that these conditions share similar patterns in how the nervous system processes pain and fatigue.
This review is important because it validates that ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, and related conditions share genuine neurobiological mechanisms rather than being purely psychological problems. For ME/CFS patients, it provides evidence that their symptoms reflect real dysfunction in nervous system signaling, which can improve clinical recognition and reduce stigma.
This review does not identify the underlying cause of these conditions or prove that they are caused by nervous system dysfunction alone. It also does not establish which symptoms are primary versus secondary, or whether the shared mechanisms represent a single disease process or separate conditions with overlapping features.
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
Sarzi-Puttini, Piercarlo, Atzeni, Fabiola, Di Franco, Manuela, Buskila, Dan, Alciati, Alessandra, Giacomelli, Camillo, et al. (2012). Dysfunctional syndromes and fibromyalgia: a 2012 critical digest.. Clinical and experimental rheumatology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23261014/
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-sarzi-puttini-2012-dysfunctional-syndromes,
author = {Sarzi-Puttini, Piercarlo and Atzeni, Fabiola and Di Franco, Manuela and Buskila, Dan and Alciati, Alessandra and Giacomelli, Camillo and Rossi, Alessandra and Bazzichi, Laura},
title = {Dysfunctional syndromes and fibromyalgia: a 2012 critical digest.},
journal = {Clinical and experimental rheumatology},
year = {2012},
note = {PubMed: 23261014},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/sarzi-puttini-2012-dysfunctional-syndromes},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/sarzi-puttini-2012-dysfunctional-syndromes
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