{"id":243559,"date":"2026-09-03T01:16:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T06:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/a-meta-analysis-uncovers-genetic-risk-factors-for-fibromyalgia"},"modified":"2026-09-03T01:16:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T06:16:33","slug":"a-meta-analysis-uncovers-genetic-risk-factors-for-fibromyalgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/a-meta-analysis-uncovers-genetic-risk-factors-for-fibromyalgia","title":{"rendered":"A Meta-Analysis Uncovers Genetic Risk Factors for Fibromyalgia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-meta-analysis-uncovers-genetic-risk-factors-for-fibromyalgia2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>People with fibromyalgia experience systemic muscular and skeletal pain, fatigue, and poor sleep. Fibromyalgia often coincides with other conditions including myalgic encephalomyelitis\/chronic fatigue syndrome, psychiatric disorders, and some autoimmune diseases. Although researchers suspect that fibromyalgia is strongly influenced by genetics, so far, scientists have not pinpointed responsible genes, complicating research into the disease and treatment options.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of the unclear disease mechanism of fibromyalgia, <a href=\"https:\/\/dellmed.utexas.edu\/directory\/kevin-hackshaw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Hackshaw<\/a>, a rheumatologist at the University of Texas at Austin, said that some physicians don\u2019t take the condition seriously. \u201cI would say greater than 50 percent of patients that eventually come to us for treatment are really individuals who have experienced rejection from other physicians along the way, believing that fibromyalgia is not real, is made up\u2026and is kind of a wastebasket term, and it is quote unquote \u2018all in your head,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, a study led by an international team of researchers tackled the complexity of gene associations in fibromyalgia with a meta-analysis of several genome-wise association studies encompassing 2.5 million people. In a study published in <em>Nature Medicine<\/em>, the researchers presented 26 loci associated with fibromyalgia risk.<sup>1<\/sup> The researchers also found strong associations with genes involved in nervous system function and pain processing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People with fibromyalgia experience systemic muscular and skeletal pain, fatigue, and poor sleep. Fibromyalgia often coincides with other conditions including myalgic encephalomyelitis\/chronic fatigue syndrome, psychiatric disorders, and some autoimmune diseases. Although researchers suspect that fibromyalgia is strongly influenced by genetics, so far, scientists have not pinpointed responsible genes, complicating research into the disease and treatment [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}