Seattle — July 28, 2026 —In a landmark study published in Nature Medicine, an international team of researchers have identified new genetic risk factors associated with fibromyalgia syndrome.
Affecting more women than men, the syndrome involves widespread pain and tenderness, fatigue, and problems with sleep, memory and mood. Despite affecting about 2% of the global population, its existence has been debated largely due to the lack of a biomarker or test for its diagnosis. This study was an important step towards better understanding the biology of fibromyalgia.
The team analyzed genetic data from more than 2.5 million adults, identifying 26 genetic variants throughout the genome associated with fibromyalgia. These variants are snippets of genetic code found more frequently in people with fibromyalgia than in healthy individuals.
The results provide the strongest evidence yet that fibromyalgia is primarily a nervous system disorder rather than an autoimmune disease, as has long been debated.
“This work changes how we think about fibromyalgia at a fundamental level,” said Dr. Michael Wainberg, an investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, part of Sinai Health and the University of Toronto and co-senior author on the paper. “For decades, patients have been dismissed or told their pain is simply psychological. Our findings confirm the condition has a clear biological basis.”
Comprising 11 different cohorts from the US, UK, Finland, Estonia, Denmark, and Iceland and 53 researchers across seven countries, the study was jointly led by Dr. Wainberg, Dr. Nasa Sinnott-Armstrong at Fred Hutch Cancer Center and University of Washington in Seattle, and Dr. Hanna Ollila at the University of Helsinki in Finland and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
A surprising link to Huntington’s disease
Of the 26 genetic variants identified, the most strongly associated variant was within the gene HTT. This gene is well known because other types of mutations in it cause Huntington’s disease, a severe, progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Another associated variant pointed to a receptor called GPR52 that regulates HTT levels. This receptor is already being investigated as a possible drug target in Huntington’s disease.
By integrating their findings with a massive dataset of 20 million cells from various tissues, the researchers found further evidence for a neurological origin of fibromyalgia. Genes near fibromyalgia genetic risk factors were more active in nervous system cells than in other types of cells, which sets fibromyalgia apart from classical autoimmune conditions.
Even so, the study found that genetics is not the main determinant of whether someone develops fibromyalgia. The authors suspect that even people carrying many fibromyalgia genetic variants likely require another risk factor, such as a painful arthritic condition, to trigger fibromyalgia syndrome.
“Understanding how genes, environmental exposures, and life events jointly contribute to risk of fibromyalgia syndrome is critical,” said Dr. Sinnott-Armstrong. “Further research into triggers of fibromyalgia and corresponding changes to neural tissues will help us determine what drives fibromyalgia and how to treat it.”
Overlap with other conditions
The study also revealed substantial genetic overlap between fibromyalgia and a range of other conditions, including low back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The researchers think that shared biological mechanisms within the nervous system may make people susceptible to several of these conditions, explaining why they often appear together.
“We know that chronic pain syndromes cluster together in individuals and families and are genetically similar,” said Dr. Frances Williams, a rheumatologist at TwinsUK, King’s College London and co-author on the study. “Targeting the shared mechanisms underlying them could potentially benefit a whole cluster of disorders.”
Despite fibromyalgia being diagnosed roughly three times more often in women than in men, the researchers did not find any genetic differences in risk between the sexes. This suggests that the higher prevalence in women could be driven by non-genetic factors, such as hormonal or environmental, or differences in pain sensitivity and diagnostic patterns.
The study’s researchers have founded the Chronic Pain Genomics Consortium (https://paingenomics.org) to investigate other chronic pain syndromes, starting with pelvic pain. The consortium sees fibromyalgia as only the beginning of a broader exploration of the landscape of chronic pain conditions.
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Media Contact:
Kat Wynn
kwynn@fredhutch.org
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Fred Hutch Cancer Center is globally recognized for trailblazing discoveries that have helped save more than a million lives worldwide. Based in Seattle, Fred Hutch is the only NCI-designated cancer center in Washington state and is home to Nobel Prize–winning scientists and cancer care experts who have made major breakthroughs in preventing and eliminating cancer and infectious disease — including bone marrow transplantation, immunotherapy and the HPV vaccine. Fred Hutch’s role as a hub for national research initiatives and clinical trial networks helps scale discoveries for greater impact. An independent cancer center, Fred Hutch also serves as UW Medicine’s cancer program. Learn more at FredHutch.org.