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Audrey Ryback

@aryback.bsky.social

ME researcher at the University of Edinburgh.

Audrey Ryback @aryback.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

3/7 When we compared the features of early and late onset ME. We found that those with early onset ME were more likely to report infection as a trigger, particularly GF/IM, and were more likely to be more severely affected. Those with relatives with ME were also more likely to have early-onset ME.

Percentage of participants in EMEA with varying levels of severity. The second graph shows the relative proportions of participants with different levels of severity, in the early and late onset, and showing an enrichment for severe cases for those with early onset ME.

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Audrey Ryback @aryback.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

2/7 We found evidence for a first peak in adolescence and a second peak in early middle age. The average ages for the early and late onset peaks were strikingly similar across countries. Countries did vary in terms of how big the early onset peak was relative to the late one.

Onset age distributions for each of the individual European countries with two normal distributions fitted to the data to estimate the mean and standard deviations of the two onset peaks.

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Audrey Ryback @aryback.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

1/7 Excited to share our new paper co-produced with @simonmcg.bsky.social. We found that previous reports of ME having two age peaks in Norway replicates in two different datasets and across 7/10 European countries we examined, suggesting this is a generalisable- and distinctive- feature of ME.

Three onset age distributions for ME/CFS, one for Norway, one for the combined 9 other countries, and one for a DecodeME subcohort, with fitted splines.

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Audrey Ryback @aryback.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

2/2 Although our findings challenge previous observations of ME serum effects, this does not mean that there are no ME-disease factors. Future studies should use different approaches to look for them. Thanks to @actionforme.bsky.social for funding this work and to all of our study participants!

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