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You have probably said it more than once. To a doctor, to a boss, to someone at a family dinner. I am not lazy. I am not making this up. I am just this tired, all the time.
And you have probably watched their face while you said it, waiting to see if they believed you.
If you live with ME/CFS, long Covid, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis or PTSD, a chronic fatigue study published in September 2026 is worth knowing about. It suggests that the crushing exhaustion in all five of these very different illnesses may run on some of the same biology underneath. It is a hopeful signal. It is also, as other scientists were quick to point out, very far from a settled answer. Both of those things are true, and you deserve to hear both.
What the chronic fatigue study actually did
The paper appeared in the Journal of Translational Medicine. It came from researchers at the University of East Anglia in the UK working with Oxford BioDynamics, a company that makes a genetic testing platform called EpiSwitch.
Here is the first thing worth knowing: nobody new was tested. The team did not recruit patients or draw fresh blood. They took genetic data that had already been published for long Covid, PTSD, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, combined it with data from an earlier ME/CFS study, and ran it all through the company’s computer analysis.
That analysis looks at something unusual. Not just the genes themselves, but how DNA is folded up inside the cell. Your DNA is not a straight line. It loops and bends, and those loops help decide which genes are switched on and which stay quiet. The idea is that the folding pattern can tell you something the gene list alone cannot.
When the researchers looked at all five illnesses this way, they reported that they kept landing in the same few places:
- The immune system and inflammation
- How cells make energy, in the tiny power stations called mitochondria
- Metabolism
- The body’s stress response
- The signals that pass between the brain and the hormone system
The lead researcher, Professor Dmitry Pshezhetskiy, put it in one line: “chronic exhaustion is not simply a symptom. It is the visible consequence of a deeper systems failure.”
For anyone who has been told their tiredness is just stress, or just mood, or just in their head, that sentence lands hard.
The detail most headlines skipped
Most of the coverage made it sound like scientists had found one broken gene behind five diseases. That is not what the study reported.
In fact, the researchers said the individual genes linked to each illness showed “surprisingly little direct overlap.” MS genes mostly were not long Covid genes. Rheumatoid arthritis genes mostly were not PTSD genes.
What overlapped was the wiring. Different parts, feeding into the same circuits. Think of five houses with different faulty switches, all wired to the same fuse box. Each house has its own problem. They all lose power the same way.
One of the genes the study flagged is called LAG3. It is linked to something immunologists call T-cell exhaustion. That is a state where the immune system’s own soldiers, after being switched on for too long, wear out and stop working properly. It is a strange and oddly moving idea: that in some of these illnesses, the body’s defenders may be just as worn out as the person carrying them.
Why other scientists are not convinced yet
The UK’s Science Media Centre gathered reactions from independent experts, and they were careful, not cruel. Their concerns are worth hearing, because they are the difference between hope and false hope.
The methods are a black box. Dr Sjoerd Beentjes of the University of Edinburgh pointed out that the EpiSwitch computer tools are proprietary, which means they are “not open to scrutiny by the scientific community.” Professor Chris Ponting, also at Edinburgh, went further: because the methods are locked away, he said the claims are impossible to evaluate. Other scientists cannot check the working.
“Unifying theory” is too big a phrase. Dr Beentjes said the claim of a biological unifying theory of fatigue appears overstated, and that precise measures of how similar the networks really are were missing.
Blood may not be where the trouble is. Professor Ponting raised a quieter problem. The folding data comes from blood. But the cells involved in these illnesses live in many other places: the brain, the joints, the nerves. What is happening in blood may not match what is happening there.
Much of it was already suspected. Professor Carmine Pariante of King’s College London described the findings as largely confirmatory rather than a brand new discovery. Researchers have suspected for years that immune and stress systems are involved in these conditions. But he also said that confirmation has value, for researchers and for the people living with these illnesses.
One more thing is worth saying plainly. The testing platform at the centre of this study belongs to one of the organisations that ran it. That does not make the findings wrong. It is simply one more reason other scientists want to see the methods before they trust the results.
So the honest summary is this: a promising pattern, from methods nobody outside can yet check. Not a cure. Not a test you can ask for next week. A signal worth watching.
Why this still matters if you are exhausted right now
Here is the part that does not depend on whether this particular study holds up.
For years, many people with these illnesses have been told some version of “your tests are normal.” We have written before about that strange place of being tired all the time when your blood tests come back normal, and about why rheumatoid arthritis pain and tiredness can linger even when the numbers improve. The same pattern shows up again and again. The person knows something is wrong. The chart says otherwise. And the gap between the two becomes its own kind of suffering.
What this study adds, even with all its caveats, is serious researchers taking exhaustion itself seriously. Treating fatigue not as a side note to the “real” disease, but as something worth mapping in its own right. That shift matters long before any answer arrives.
Disturbed sleep is one of the symptoms these illnesses share, and it is one of the few things you can start untangling on your own. If nights are part of your exhaustion, our free Why Can’t I Sleep? assessment can help you put words to what is going on before your next appointment.
Actions to Take
None of these cost money. None of them replace your care.
- Keep a plain energy diary for one week. Each evening, note how much energy you had from 0 to 10, how you slept, and what you did. A written pattern is much harder to wave away than a feeling.
- Say the gap out loud. At your next appointment, try: “My results look normal, but my fatigue is stopping me from living my life. What else could we look at?”
- Be wary of anyone selling a cure off the back of this news. This study did not produce a treatment or a test you can buy. If someone offers you one, ask hard questions.
- Tell one person the truth about how tired you are. Not the polite version. Exhaustion grows heavier when nobody else is holding any of it.
The first thing that heals is being seen
There is a very old story, thousands of years old, about a woman named Hagar. She was a servant with no power and no voice. She ended up alone in the desert, pregnant, having run from a home where she was treated badly. Nobody was coming to look for her.
And then, in the story, God finds her by a spring of water. Before anything in her situation is fixed, she does something no one else in the whole story does. She gives God a name. And the name she chooses is not The One Who Fixes, or The One Who Explains. It is, simply, the God who sees me.
Her problem was not solved that day. She still had a long road ahead. But something changed in her before anything changed around her. She had been seen.
Maybe that is why being believed matters so much to people with invisible illness. Not because it is the cure. Because it comes first.
A good place to start:
The Beginner’s Guide to Feeling God’s Presence Every Day
A short video guide and companion PDF for noticing that you are not alone in the ordinary hours of a hard day, including the tired ones.
Get the free guide
Free.
Where this leaves you
Science moves slowly, and it should. This study may hold up, or it may not. The scientists questioning it are doing exactly their job, and if the pattern is real, it will survive being checked.
But you do not have to wait for a peer review to believe your own body. Your tiredness is real. It was real before this study, and it will be real whatever the next one says. Rest when you can. Write down what you notice. Keep asking the questions. And let the people who love you see a little more of how heavy it really is.
Discussion Question
Should doctors take a patient’s exhaustion seriously as a symptom on its own, even when every test comes back normal? Or does that risk treating something that can’t be measured? Tell us where you land in the comments.
Share This
Post 1: A new study suggests ME/CFS, long Covid, MS, rheumatoid arthritis and PTSD may share some of the same biology behind the exhaustion. Other scientists say the methods can’t be checked yet. Honest read on both sides: https://bgodinspired.com/?p=117597
Post 2: The genes behind these five illnesses barely overlapped. What overlapped was the wiring. That detail changed how I read the whole story. https://bgodinspired.com/?p=117597
Post 3: If you have ever had to convince someone you are really this tired, this one is for you. https://bgodinspired.com/?p=117597
Questions People Ask About the Chronic Fatigue Study
What did the 2026 chronic fatigue study find about ME/CFS, long Covid, PTSD, MS and rheumatoid arthritis?
A study published in September 2026 in the Journal of Translational Medicine, by researchers at the University of East Anglia and the company Oxford BioDynamics, reported that ME/CFS, long Covid, PTSD, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis appear to share biological networks linked to immune and inflammatory signalling, mitochondrial energy production, metabolism, stress response and brain-hormone signalling. The individual genes associated with each illness showed little direct overlap; the shared pattern appeared in the regulatory networks those genes connect to.
Is there now one cause of chronic fatigue?
No. Independent experts quoted by the UK Science Media Centre described the claim of a biological unifying theory of fatigue as overstated. The study reanalysed existing genetic data rather than testing new patients, and its computational methods are proprietary, so other scientists cannot yet check how the results were produced. It is best understood as a promising pattern that still needs independent confirmation.
Why are scientists cautious about the EpiSwitch fatigue study?
Scientists at the University of Edinburgh raised three main concerns about the EpiSwitch fatigue study. The EpiSwitch computational tools are proprietary and not open to scrutiny, which makes the claims hard to evaluate. Precise measures of how similar the disease networks are were missing. And the genome-folding data comes from blood, while the cells involved in these illnesses are found in other tissues such as the brain, nerves and joints. A King’s College London expert also described the findings as largely confirming what was already suspected.
Can I get a blood test for chronic fatigue based on this research?
Not as a result of this study. The research was a computer analysis of previously published data and did not produce a new diagnostic test or treatment for chronic fatigue. People with ongoing exhaustion are best served by discussing their symptoms, sleep and daily function with a doctor, and by being cautious about any product marketed as a cure on the basis of this news.
What is T-cell exhaustion?
T-cell exhaustion is a state in which T cells, a type of immune cell, lose their ability to work properly after being activated for a long time. The 2026 fatigue study flagged a gene called LAG3, which is associated with T-cell exhaustion, as one of the candidate genes linked to the shared biology across ME/CFS, long Covid, PTSD, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
Source: expert reaction compiled by the Science Media Centre. This article is for general information and is not medical advice.
