By Adrienne Dellwo
Medically reviewed by Grant Hughes, MD 
February 01, 2020

D-ribose is a supplement that's sometimes recommended as a treatment for people with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Also called ribose or Beta-D-ribofuranose, it's a type of sugar that your body produces naturally and is readily available in supplement form.

D-ribose plays several important roles in your body, such as:

- Helping produce energy in the form of ATP (adenosine triphosphate)

- Serving as a building block of the genetic material RNA (ribonucleic acid)

- Helping increase your muscle energy

As with most supplements, we don't have enough high-quality research to draw a lot of conclusions about it as a treatment for these conditions.

D-Ribose for Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

We have very little research on d-ribose supplementation for either fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. Still, some health-care providers recommend it, and some people with these conditions say it is an effective part of their treatment regimen.

One small study published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine concluded that d-ribose supplementation significantly improved symptoms of these conditions, including:

- Increasing energy levels

- Improving sleep quality

- Improving mental clarity

- Lowering pain intensity

- Improving overall well being

However, this work is preliminary and we need considerably more research to confirm the findings, including larger studies.

It's unclear how d-ribose accomplishes the things that have been attributed to it. For example, the low energy in fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome is theorized to come from a deficiency of ATP, but we don't have any proof so far that d-ribose supplementation boosts ATP.1