Steenblock, Charlotte, Walther, Romy, Kok, Yannick et al. · Hormone and metabolic research = Hormon- und Stoffwechselforschung = Hormones et metabolisme · 2025 · DOI
This study tested a blood-cleaning procedure called apheresis in 24 men from the Middle East and North Africa who had chronic fatigue and metabolic problems like diabetes or high cholesterol. The procedure removed harmful fats and immune molecules from their blood. After treatment, patients showed improvements in their blood work, with reduced inflammatory markers and autoantibodies that may contribute to fatigue.
This research explores whether apheresis—a blood-filtering therapy—can reduce the inflammatory molecules and immune dysfunction implicated in ME/CFS and long-COVID. If validated in larger, controlled trials, it could offer a therapeutic avenue for patients in understudied populations where metabolic comorbidities worsen fatigue severity.
This study does not prove apheresis is an effective treatment for ME/CFS or long-COVID, as it lacks a control group, relies on biomarker changes without documented symptom improvement metrics, and includes only male patients from one region. Reduction in inflammatory markers does not necessarily translate to sustained clinical improvement in fatigue or functional capacity. The cross-sectional design cannot establish causation between biomarker changes and symptom relief.
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
Steenblock, Charlotte, Walther, Romy, Kok, Yannick, Mavberg, Philip, Yaman, Mohamad, Handgretinger, Rupert, et al. (2025). Single-Center Study of Therapeutic Apheresis in 24 Male Patients from the MENA Region: Reduction of Lipids, Inflammatory Markers, Autoantibodies, and Implications for Fatigue, Genetics, and Aging.. Hormone and metabolic research = Hormon- und Stoffwechselforschung = Hormones et metabolisme. https://doi.org/10.1055/a-2678-7739
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-steenblock-2025-single-center,
author = {Steenblock, Charlotte and Walther, Romy and Kok, Yannick and Mavberg, Philip and Yaman, Mohamad and Handgretinger, Rupert and Castillo-Aleman, Yandy Marx and Al Karam, Maysoon and Bornstein, Stefan R},
title = {Single-Center Study of Therapeutic Apheresis in 24 Male Patients from the MENA Region: Reduction of Lipids, Inflammatory Markers, Autoantibodies, and Implications for Fatigue, Genetics, and Aging.},
journal = {Hormone and metabolic research = Hormon- und Stoffwechselforschung = Hormones et metabolisme},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1055/a-2678-7739},
note = {PubMed: 40934950},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/steenblock-2025-single-center},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/steenblock-2025-single-center
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