Key clinical point: Stressful life events are associated with an increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS).
Major finding: Stressful major life events that happened prior to disease onset significantly increased the risk by 17%-30%. Women were more vulnerable than men under certain stressful scenarios such as conflict at work or within families, marriage, sickness, or accident of family members.
Study details: A large Swedish case-control study of 2,930 patients with MS and 6,170 control participants.
Disclosures: Dr. Jiang was supported by a starting package from the Swedish Research Council.
Citation: Jiang X et al. Eur J Neurol. 2020 Aug 2. doi: 10.1111/ene.14458.