Posted on 10/18/2021 7:22:54 AM PDT by Red Badger
For most of the time since the first description of multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1868, the causes of this disabling disease have remained uncertain. Genes have been identified as important, which is why having other family members with MS is associated with a greater risk of developing the disease.
A recent study my colleagues and I conducted found that several types of infection during the teenage years are associated with MS after age 20. Our study didn't investigate whether people who are more likely to have genetic risks for MS were also more likely to have worse infections.
This might explain why people with MS also have more infections that need hospital treatment.
If this were the explanation, the infection would not be a risk factor triggering MS, it would only identify those more likely to have MS, anyway. Our new study, published in JAMA Network Open, examines this and shows that glandular fever (one of the infections most associated with MS risk) during the teenage years really is a risk factor for subsequent MS.
Some scientists have suggested that infections like glandular fever (also called infectious mononucleosis "mono" or "kissing disease") might be worse in people who will go on to develop MS because their immune system is already different.
But another explanation – the one that our study investigated – is that the infection triggers MS. It has also been argued that families with more infections are different in other ways from families who have fewer infections. Perhaps the differences between these families – not the infections themselves – are what helps to explain MS risk.
To confirm that infections are a true risk factor for MS, triggering the MS disease process, our latest study compared siblings in the same family. Siblings share much of their genetic make-up and have similar family lives.
If one sibling develops glandular fever and goes on to develop MS, while the other does not develop glandular fever and does not develop MS, that would suggest that it is the glandular fever rather than any genetic predisposition that led to the MS. (On the other hand, if only one developed glandular fever but they both later developed MS, that would suggest a genetic predisposition was to blame.)
If we see the same pattern in many families, we can be much more certain that that's the case.
We looked at glandular fever at different ages, as the teenage years may be a time when exposures are most likely to increase MS risk. The study involved 2.5 million people living in Sweden. Just under 6,000 had a diagnosis of MS after age 20.
We found that glandular fever between ages 11 and 19 was associated with a significantly increased MS risk after age 20 years, in an analysis that compared siblings with each other in every family separately, and then the results were combined.
This design was to make sure the results are not because people susceptible to MS are also more likely to have more severe infections because of this susceptibility. The results confirm that glandular fever, and almost certainly other infections, are important risk factors for MS and able to trigger the disease.
The new study also made it possible to look in greater detail at when an infection is more likely to trigger MS. Glandular fever in earlier childhood was less of a risk for MS than when it occurred after age 11 years.
The highest risk for MS was seen for infections between ages 11 and 15 years (around the time of puberty), with the risk dropping with increasing age and almost completely disappearing by age 25.
Changes in the brain and immune system as people age may help explain this.
MS develops very slowly Even though glandular fever may be triggering MS, most often around puberty, it can be many years before MS is diagnosed. Many who had the infection between ages 11 and 15 years did not have an MS diagnosis until after they were 30.
This is because the damage to the brain caused by MS develops slowly until it makes someone sick enough to receive a diagnosis of MS.
Glandular fever during the teenage years may trigger MS because it can get into the brain. And the damage it causes to nerve cells may cause the immune system to start attacking a part of the nerves that insulates them – called the myelin sheath.
When the immune system is activated in this way, the process is called autoimmunity. Once started, it can damage nerves in the brain that can become progressively worse over the years. Fortunately, modern treatments are becoming increasingly effective in slowing this process.
This study provides stronger evidence that a severe bout of glandular fever (and likely other serious infections) during the teenage years – particularly around puberty - can trigger MS, even though, often, MS may not be diagnosed for at least ten years after the infection. Scott Montgomery, Honorary Professor, Epidemiology, UCL.
Is there a vaccine for Mono?
Interesting. Have 2 friends with MS.
MS is a terrible disease reserved only for the worst in the world.
Too bad so many good people get it.
I’ve had mono twice as a kid, 5 and 12. So far, no MS.
This is not a new thesis. Multiple Sclerosis is thought by many to be an autoimmune disease. That is to say the individual’s own immune system after some stimulus begins to react against their own tissue, erode it and cause disease. It is speculation with no documented experimental proofs to date. The theory is that an individual with the right predisposing genotype when exposed to a virus or bacteria, develop a destructive auto-immune response. Actually rheumatic fever, which destroys heart tissue is thought to be a autoimmune response to some strains of streptococcus. Many physicians believe that juvenile diabetes is an auto immune disease. A virus, with little or no symptoms, goes through a school or community, almost all get well but six to eight weeks later a genetically susceptible previously healthy child presents with diabetes.
As we now see with the COVID-19 pandemic, the future of Medicine will be centered on understanding genetics and the complexity of immunology.
I have one sister that was diagnosed in her 30’s and a co-worker that was also diagnosed in her 30’s with MS. Neither one has it now. It has mysteriously disappeared.
I am in the middle of this mess right now.
So hear me well.......if you think you might have an autoimmune disease please look into MRI contrast and educate yourself before getting that MRI with contrast
I am not saying don’t get the MRI. I am saying educate yourself well. Read the black box label FDA finally put on the contrast. And read about the wife of Chuck Norris
Also, DirectLabs has the ANA test as well as the one that tests for AMA
Oh and I did have Mono as young teenager.
Duchene’s M.D. is too, it can be early to late onset. My BIL has late, as does his brother who is younger but worse life style. BIL grandson has early onset, his brothers teen son, had it, but died in a car wreck. It is a Genetic disease, fatal too. Skipped his son. Goes down female line.
This sounds like another herpes virus.
Mononucleosis is a herpes virus called Epstein-Barr. If it reappears years later as multiple sclerosis then it is behaving like another herpes virus that uses a 2 part attack that responsible for chicken pox and later shingles, varicella-zoster.
Diagnosis is sketchy especially early in the progression. Plus, there is a remitting form of MS in which a person may become asymptomatic for periods of time. Hopefully your friends had a wrong dx, or at least the relapsing/remitting form, which is more treatable than the straight progressive illness.
Watch for reports of sudden onset of MS in covid vaxxinated people….
Anecdotally being reported
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I had allergic reaction to the contrast dye. They made me take a benadryl before I could leave. I don’t do well on that stuff either. I hope there’s no unseen damage from that one instance.
Hey, if mononucleosis isn’t a global pandemic and existential crisis, I did a lot of kissing for nothing.
I read a study where they did a fecal transplant into 3 MS patients. All three got better and were restored in their ability to walk again. No profit for drug companies, of course, and the FDA won’t allow fecal transplants for MS.
When my sister was diagnosed she was so weak she couldn’t even get out of bed if one of her big dogs was on the bed with her. Now she does anything she wants to do.
The co-worker said her church had a prayer session for her and it went away. When she went for her checkup the doctor couldn’t find any sign of it. I hope it doesn’t come back for either of them.
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