Weigel, Breanna, Eaton-Fitch, Natalie, Passmore, Rachel et al. · Food & nutrition research · 2021 · DOI
This study looked at what Australian ME/CFS patients eat and what supplements they take, and whether these choices affect their quality of life. Researchers surveyed 24 ME/CFS patients online and compared their diets to the general Australian population. They found that ME/CFS patients use supplements much more often than the general public, but couldn't find a clear link between specific nutrients or supplements and how patients felt.
ME/CFS patients often turn to dietary changes and supplements as management strategies since no approved pharmaceutical treatments exist. This is the first Australian study specifically examining supplement and nutritional patterns in ME/CFS patients, providing baseline data on a common patient behavior and highlighting the need for more rigorous investigation into whether these interventions genuinely improve outcomes.
This study cannot establish that supplements or specific nutrients cause improvements in ME/CFS or HRQoL—it only describes what patients report using and consuming. The small sample size (n=24), lack of control group, and reliance on self-report data limit generalizability. The absence of identified trends between nutrition and HRQoL does not mean supplements are ineffective; it may reflect methodological limitations or that individual responses vary considerably.
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
Weigel, Breanna, Eaton-Fitch, Natalie, Passmore, Rachel, Cabanas, Hélène, Staines, Donald, & Marshall-Gradisnik, Sonya (2021). A preliminary investigation of nutritional intake and supplement use in Australians with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and the implications on health-related quality of life.. Food & nutrition research. https://doi.org/10.29219/fnr.v65.5730
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-weigel-2021-preliminary-investigation,
author = {Weigel, Breanna and Eaton-Fitch, Natalie and Passmore, Rachel and Cabanas, Hélène and Staines, Donald and Marshall-Gradisnik, Sonya},
title = {A preliminary investigation of nutritional intake and supplement use in Australians with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and the implications on health-related quality of life.},
journal = {Food & nutrition research},
year = {2021},
doi = {10.29219/fnr.v65.5730},
note = {PubMed: 34262415},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/weigel-2021-preliminary-investigation},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/weigel-2021-preliminary-investigation
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