Parents who lose a child have an increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis, an incurable disease that strips the nerves, researchers in Denmark reported on Monday.
People who lost a child were 50 percent more likely to develop MS than parents who did not lose a child, the study found -- raising the possibility that psychological stress may play a role in the development of MS.
Writing in Tuesday’s issue of the journal Neurology, the researchers said the risk of developing MS was even greater for parents whose child died unexpectedly. They were more than twice as likely to develop MS as parents who did not lose a child.
“We hypothesized that, if stress causes MS, only severe stresses are likely candidates, because MS is a rare disease,” said Dr. Jiong Li of the University of Aarhus in Denmark, who led the study.
“The death of a child is one of the most serious stressors that occurs in a society with low infant mortality, so it serves as an objective indicator that can be studied.”
Understanding the disease process
Li said the results could help researchers determine what processes in the body are affected by stress that could lead to MS. “This could help us better understand the disease process and, in the future, develop preventative treatments,” he said.
Li’s team used Denmark’s extensive system of medical records, identifying all children under 18 who died over a 16-year period, and their parents. Then, over 10 years, they compared these families to similar families in which a child did not die.
There were 21,062 parents who lost a child and 293,745 parents who did not. People who had MS or suspected MS at the start of the study were not included.
Over that time, 28 of the parents who had lost a child developed MS. During the same time 230 of the other parents developed MS -- a much lower rate.
Multiple sclerosis occurs when the protective, insulating coating around the nerve connections, called myelin, comes under mistaken attack by the immune system.
The National MS Society says about 400,000 Americans have MS, and every week about 200 people are diagnosed. Worldwide, as many as 2.5 million people may have the disease.
