Are Stress And Multiple Sclerosis Linked? Apparently Not
Academic JournalMain Category: Multiple Sclerosis
Also Included In: Neurology / Neuroscience
Article Date: 30 May 2011 - 16:00 PDT
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opinions'Are Stress And Multiple Sclerosis Linked? Apparently Not'
| Patient / Public: |  |
3.1 (21 votes) |
| Healthcare Prof: |  |
3.75 (12 votes) |
| Article opinions: | 6 posts |
Contrary to popular belief, stressful life events do not appear to be linked to the risk of developing MS (multiple sclerosis), researchers wrote in the journal Neurology.
According to previous studies, stressful events increase the likelihood of flare-ups in patients who already have MS.
Scientists from the USA and Norway set out to determine whether stress might raise the risk of developing MS itself, among people who do not have the disease.
They gathered data on 121,700 females nurses from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) which started in 1976, as well as the Nurses' Health Study 2 (NHS2) involving 116,671 female nurses which started in 1989.
All the participants' self-reported their general levels of stress at work and at home.
By 2005 they had identified 77 cases of MS in the NHS, and 292 cases by 2004 in the NHS2.
They made adjustments for age, ethnic group, BMI (body mass index) at age 18, and smoking status.
The authors found no link between MS risk and home stress in the NHS. Not even among those who had reported severe physical or sexual abuse when they were children or teenagers.
The researchers concluded:
"These results do not support a major role of stress in the development of the disease, but repeated and more focused measures of stress are needed to firmly exclude stress as a potential risk factor for MS."
MS rates are lower the nearer you go to the equator, with very northern and very southern regions of the planet having the highest rates. Experts believe vitamin D intake is linked to MS risk. Migration studies have found that migrants acquire their new region's susceptibility to MS.
Approximately 250,000 to 350,000 individuals in the USA have been diagnosed with MS. It is more common in Caucasians and females. The average age of onset is between 20 and 40 years. Children whose parent has/had MS have a higher risk of developing it themselves.
"Stress and the risk of multiple sclerosis"
T. Riise, PhD, D.C. Mohr, PhD, K.L. Munger, ScD, J.W. Rich-Edwards, PhD, I. Kawachi, MD and A. Ascherio, MD
Neurology. May 31, 2011 vol. 76 no. 22 1866-1871. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e31821d74c5
Written by Christian Nordqvist
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MLA
26 May. 2012. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/226902.php>
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http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/226902.php.
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Visitor Opinions (latest shown first)
Having MS
posted by Maritha on 19 Aug 2011 at 5:22 amI have found out by myself that stress was a good thing in my life. It helped me to keep my head feeling good and it had not any negetive feelings for me in many years.I thought of it as positive stress.
for captbilly
posted by Globespy on 31 May 2011 at 11:10 pmI agree entirely. These bafoons are happily jumping to their very subjective conclusion. I can only imagine there's an alternate reason that probably has something to do with trying to ensure that greedy corporations have no problems continuing to work people like dogs and have no responsibility fir their health.
EVERYTHING is impacted or caused by stress whether its physical, mental, dietary or environmental. People are not machines despite what companies would like them to believe.
How does one measure their own stress level?
posted by captbilly on 30 May 2011 at 10:59 pmHow does one measure their own stress level? How does one know whether a particular event or lifestyle is stressful to a particular person. For example: I was a USAF pilot for 6 years. Some people would find flying planes at high speeds in close proximity to the ground, day and night, and in bad weather, to be stressful, but me and most of my fellow pilots, generally enjoyed the experience and often found it more refreshing than stressful.
But my point is that stress is often very personal. For some people a simple stable boring life would be the essence of stress free living, for others that same life would be oppressively boring, even to the point of being stressful. For some people the notion of moving from one place to another every year, might be highly stressful, to another that same life might be perfectly stimulating. You can't simply say that someone's life is stressful because the events in their life should be stressful, anymore then you can understand why one of my cats is terrified of strangers and the other goes right over to every person who comes in the house.
I studied physics at Columbia. In that field of science we dealt with quantifiable events that were, generally, easy to isolate and measure. The problem I see in the type of study presented in the article is that the "scientists" are trying to draw conclusions from data that a physicist would consider completely ambiguous and tainted by uncontrolled variables. I can't see how anyone could find anything beyond the most general hint of a hypothesis in this data, yet these guys are drawing actual conclusions.
Porphyria
posted by Chris on 30 May 2011 at 9:17 pmSome people who now have MS had Porphyria, heredity type. It took them some 10 doctors to go through to find someone who would know and treat the disease. Some developed MS after ten years of treatment. Try liver toxicity from iron overdosing as one place as well to look. Another area is the chemical adiponectin which acts upon lowering inflammation and is a stress reliever. Over weight conditions leads to depletion of adiponectin. I also believe people might make adiponectin at different rates at different times of ones life. Be interesting to see a study on MS and adiponectin as well as MS and Porphyria.
Not surprising
posted by Matt on 30 May 2011 at 8:03 pmOnce you have the set of symptoms and lesions categorized as MS, which is frequently accompanied by the constricted jugular veins (CCSVI), a stressful situation is going to increase blood flow, which will cause spillage that the immune system has to clean up, and the myelin is collateral damage. That's how I f***d up my leg, by stressing myself out, not sleeping, and then going to work in a restaurant and almost passing out. But if you don't have the underlying issues that cause MS in the first place, stress isn't going to cause it to magically appear. I could have told you this without all the time spent studying it.
Can we really take these conclusions at face value?
posted by John Neill on 30 May 2011 at 5:49 pmSurvey data involving self report are suspect. They are not only of little use, they are probably generating false data and conclusions. How about looking at measures of stressors that have a history of strong empirical support? For example, look at the work of Dr. Robert Sapolsky.
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