| Published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), a prospective
study from the the Netherlands has linked stressful life events, not
associated with Multiple Sclerosis, with a doubling of the number of
exacerbations in people with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis.
D Buljevac et al, Department of Neurology, Rotterdam,
Netherlands, studied the effects of stressful, self-reported life
events in 73 patients with Multiple Sclerosis. "Using Cox regression
analysis with time dependent variables showed that stress was
associated with a doubling of the exacerbation rate (relative risk
2.2, 95% confidence interval 1.2 to 4.0, P = 0.014) during the
subsequent four weeks."
"In total we analysed 124 patient-years. In total 505 stressful
life events were reported. Forty eight events were directly related
to signs or symptoms of multiple sclerosis and were excluded, which
left 457 events for analysis.
The average duration of a stressful event as noted in the diaries
was 2.8 weeks."
D Buljevac et al, reported that stressful events, not
related to Multiple Sclerosis itself, "were associated with a
doubling of the risk of an exacerbation within the next week."
BMJ 2003; 327: 646-0. |
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multiple sclerosis, multiple sclerosis news, stress, risk of
exacerbation, doubled, stressful event
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