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4 reviews

• 6/ 10Borderline

  Cerebral blood flow is reduced in ME/CFS during head-up tilt testing even in the absence of hypotension or tachycardia: A quantitative, controlled study using Doppler echography

  van Campen CLMC, Verheugt FWA, Rowe PC, et al. · Clinical Neurophysiology Practice · 2020

  Brain blood flow fell much more on tilt in patients than in healthy controls, even with normal heart rate and blood pressure, but without inactive or ill controls or a correction for over-breathing, the claims about cause and diagnosis go beyond the data.

  Healthy controls only, fitness not reportedScans recorded by a clinician who knew the groupsMeasures blood volume to the brain, not just speed
• 4.5/ 10Fails

  The DePaul Symptom Questionnaire-2: A Validation Study

  Bedree H, Sunnquist M, Jason LA · Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health & Behavior · 2019

  A sensible revision of a patient questionnaire, honestly described, but with no comparison group, no reference diagnosis and no repeat testing it cannot show the validity and reliability its title and conclusion claim.

  No comparison group or reference diagnosisMore people meeting criteria is built into the designSplitting two-in-one questions shows clear differences
• 5/ 10Borderline

  A prospective observational study of post-COVID-19 chronic fatigue syndrome following the first pandemic wave in Germany and biomarkers associated with symptom severity

  Kedor C, Freitag H, Meyer-Arndt L, et al. · Nature Communications · 2022

  Careful early evidence that some people meet strict ME/CFS criteria after mild COVID-19, but the headline blood-marker links to grip strength appear to pool men and women, and most weaken or vanish in women alone.

  Self-referred patients; cannot show how commonNo healthy or recovered controls measuredStrict criteria, with a real medical work-up
• 4/ 10Fails

  Development and validation of blood-based diagnostic biomarkers for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) using EpiSwitch® 3-dimensional genomic regulatory immuno-genetic profiling

  Hunter E, Alshaker H, Bundock O, et al. · Journal of Translational Medicine · 2025

  An interesting DNA-folding signal, but cases and most controls came from different sources, so the 96% accuracy may partly reflect sample origin rather than disease.

  Cases and most controls from different sourcesSample counts inconsistent across the paperMarker selection confined to the training set