There is a simple, if not grave, message in the following new study: If you don't have MS and you smoke, you have a higher chance of acquiring it. If you already have MS and smoke, you have a significantly higher risk of converting to secondary progressive (versus a RRMS non-smoker).
To be fair, this study, however, does not control for the hypothesis that MS may cause changes in the brain that make people more likely to smoke in the first place. Nevertheless, it is a rather straightforward conclusion that smoking is certainly not "good" or even benign for MSers, given the other recent studies that showed cognitive decline in smokers, as well as a 2 times higher risk of multiple sclerosis diagnosis versus nonsmokers.
If you need help quitting, post a message in the forums and our community will undoubtedly help.
"These results support the hypothesis that cigarette smoking is associated with an increased risk of multiple sclerosis, and suggest that smoking may be a risk factor for transforming a relapsing-remitting clinical course into a secondary progressive course."
Please click "read more" to see this abstract.
Study Abstract
Brain. 2005 Mar 9;
Cigarette smoking and the progression of multiple sclerosis.
Hernan MA, Jick SS, Logroscino G, Olek MJ, Ascherio A, Jick H.
Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA.
Summary An increased risk of multiple sclerosis among smokers has been found in several prospective epidemiological studies. The association between smoking and progression of multiple sclerosis has not been examined. We identified patients who had a first multiple sclerosis diagnosis recorded in the General Practice Research Database (GPRD) between January 1993 and December 2000. Their diagnosis and date of first symptoms were confirmed through examination of medical records. Smoking status was obtained from the computer records. To assess the association between smoking and risk of multiple sclerosis, we conducted a case-control study nested in the GPRD. Up to 10 controls per case were randomly selected, matched on age, sex, practice, date of joining the practice and availability of smoking data. To assess the association between smoking and progression of multiple sclerosis, we conducted a cohort study of multiple sclerosis cases with a relapsing-remitting onset. Our nested case-control study included 201 cases of multiple sclerosis and 1913 controls. The odds ratio [95% confidence interval (CI)] of multiple sclerosis was 1.3 (1.0-1.7) for ever smokers compared with never smokers. Our cohort study included 179 cases with a mean (median) length of follow-up of 5.3 (5.3) years. The hazard ratio of secondary progression was 3.6 (95% CI 1.3-9.9) for ever smokers compared with never smokers. These results support the hypothesis that cigarette smoking is associated with an increased risk of multiple sclerosis, and suggest that smoking may be a risk factor for transforming a relapsing-remitting clinical course into a secondary progressive course.
PMID: 15758034 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15758034
