Wei, Xintong, Xin, Jiayun, Chen, Wei et al. · Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie · 2023 · DOI
This study tested whether astragalus polysaccharide (APS), a compound from traditional Chinese medicine, could help with chronic fatigue syndrome in mice. The researchers found that APS improved fatigue-related symptoms by changing the bacteria in the gut, which led to more production of beneficial compounds called short-chain fatty acids that reduced inflammation and oxidative stress in the brain.
This study provides mechanistic insight into how gut microbiota alterations and reduced SCFA production may contribute to ME/CFS pathophysiology, and identifies a potential therapeutic approach. Understanding the gut-brain axis connection in fatigue syndromes could inform future human clinical trials of microbiota-modulating interventions.
This study does not demonstrate that APS is effective in humans with ME/CFS; it is a mouse model study. It does not prove that altered gut microbiota causes ME/CFS (correlation vs. causation), nor does it establish that SCFA supplementation alone would replicate these benefits in humans. The findings may not translate to human patients due to differences in disease pathophysiology, microbiota composition, and metabolism.
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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