Steinsvik, Elisabeth K, Hausken, Trygve, Fluge, Øystein et al. · Scandinavian journal of gastroenterology · 2023 · DOI
Many people with ME/CFS experience stomach and digestive problems like bloating, nausea, and abdominal pain. This study used ultrasound imaging to examine how the stomach processes food in 20 ME/CFS patients with digestive complaints, comparing them to healthy people. The researchers found that ME/CFS patients' stomachs don't relax and expand normally after eating, and they are more sensitive to discomfort, similar to a condition called functional dyspepsia.
This study fills an important gap by providing objective evidence of abnormal stomach function in ME/CFS rather than attributing symptoms solely to psychological causes. Understanding that ME/CFS patients share gastric dysfunction patterns with functional dyspepsia may guide more targeted treatment strategies. These findings validate patient-reported gastrointestinal symptoms as having a measurable physiological basis.
This study does not prove that gastric dysfunction causes ME/CFS fatigue or other systemic symptoms—it only documents that the two conditions frequently co-occur. The small sample size and selection of symptomatic patients limits generalizability to all ME/CFS patients. The study does not establish whether these motility changes are primary to ME/CFS or secondary to other disease processes.
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
Steinsvik, Elisabeth K, Hausken, Trygve, Fluge, Øystein, Mella, Olav, & Gilja, Odd Helge (2023). Gastric dysmotility and gastrointestinal symptoms in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.. Scandinavian journal of gastroenterology. https://doi.org/10.1080/00365521.2023.2173533
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-steinsvik-2023-gastric-dysmotility,
author = {Steinsvik, Elisabeth K and Hausken, Trygve and Fluge, Øystein and Mella, Olav and Gilja, Odd Helge},
title = {Gastric dysmotility and gastrointestinal symptoms in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.},
journal = {Scandinavian journal of gastroenterology},
year = {2023},
doi = {10.1080/00365521.2023.2173533},
note = {PubMed: 36728717},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/steinsvik-2023-gastric-dysmotility},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/steinsvik-2023-gastric-dysmotility
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