Apples for Health- Smoking linked to more rapid MS decline

Smoking linked to more rapid MS decline

BOSTON, July 15 (UPI) -- Cigarette smokers are at higher risk of developing multiple sclerosis and the disease appears to progress more rapidly in smokers, U.S. researchers say.
Brian C. Healy of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and colleagues studied 1,465 patients with MS who visited a referral center between February 2006 and August 2007.
Participants had an average age of 42 and had MS for an average of 9.4 years. Their progression was assessed by clinical characteristics as well as by magnetic resonance imaging over an average of 3.29 years. Fifty-three percent of the patients had never smoked, 29.2 percent had smoked in the past and 17.5 percent were current smokers.
During follow-up, seven never-smokers began smoking and 57 current smokers quit. Current smokers had significantly more severe disease symptoms at the beginning of the study in terms of scores on disability scales and also in the analysis of magnetic resonance imaging factors.
The study, published in Archives of Neurology, found current smokers were more likely to have primary progressive MS, characterized by a steady decline, rather than relapsing-remitting MS -- involving alternating periods of attacks and symptom-free periods.