Stress Linked to Multiple Sclerosis
March 11, 2004
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- We know stress can be bad for the heart, but new research suggests it can have other consequences. A study out of Denmark indicates stress can increase the risk for multiple sclerosis.
Investigators used 16 years of Danish national registers to identify all children under age 18 who died and their surviving parents. They, then, randomly selected 15-times as many parents who did not lose a child and who had the same number of children around the same age. In all, nearly 315,000 parents were followed for close to 10 years.
During the study, 28 of the parents who lost a child developed MS and 230 other parents developed MS. Evidently, psychological stress may play a role in the development of the disease, researchers say. They found parents whose child died unexpectedly were more than twice as likely to develop MS than parents who did not lose any children.
Study author Jiong Li, M.D., MSc, from the University of Aarhus in Denmark, says, “[The results] could help us better understand the disease process and, in the future, develop preventative treatments.”
Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disorder that affects young adults, and the cause is not known. However, researchers believe that genetic susceptibility and environmental factors play a role.
SOURCE: Neurology, 2004;62:726-729
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