Study Links Multiple Sclerosis to Dementia Risk

It’s MS Awareness Week in the United States — the time of year that the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and people living with MS try to spread awareness of this disease. For the past several years, I’ve determined to spend this week educating people who live with MS about the disease they have. For past MS awareness weeks, I’ve written pieces on MS history and about the first recorded cases of MS. Today I write about research suggesting what might be in some of our futures. It’s not a happy topic, but I believe that forewarned is forearmed. A recent study published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health links autoimmune diseases — including multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis — to Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. The researchers identified people who had been hospitalized for autoimmune diseases, then looked to see which of them were subsequently hospitalized with dementia. The paper, published last week, links 18 of the 25 autoimmune diseases studied with increased rates of dementia. The bad news is that the risk for people with MS appears to be almost double that of the control population without an autoimmune disease. The researchers note that their study does not explain the reasons behind this association. They also caution that although their findings were significant, the magnitude of the association found was small. Further studies are needed to confirm or refute the findings and to explore the c...
Source: Life with MS - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: multiple sclerosis awareness life with MS Living with MS MS and family MS symptoms trevis gleason Source Type: blogs