THE ESSENTIAL
- Researchers have observed a link between childhood abuse and the development of multiple sclerosis in adult women
- In 2018, multiple sclerosis (MS) affected 100,000 people in France, including 700 children
It was already known that childhood trauma could impair the immune system and increase the risk of autoimmune disease, and that abuse, neglect and a chaotic family life were associated with an increased risk of poor mental and physical health. adulthood. A study published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry and carried out on nearly 78,000 pregnant women whose health was monitored between 1999 and 2008 has just shown a proven link between trauma suffered during childhood and the risk of developing multiple sclerosis in adulthood. The figures are edifying: increased risk of 65% in the event of sexual abuse, 40% in the event of emotional abuse and 31% in the event of physical abuse.
The risk was even higher when exposed to two categories of abuse (66% increased risk) and reached 93% when exposed to all three categories, indicating a “dose-response” association, suggest researchers.
Smoking, overweight and depression
For this observational study, information on childhood abuse before the age of 18 was collected through responses to a questionnaire: a total of 14,477 women reported having suffered childhood abuse. , while 63,520 said they had not. The abused women were more likely to be smokers or former smokers – a known risk factor for MS – to be overweight and to have depressive symptoms.
Some 300 women were diagnosed with multiple sclerosis during the surveillance period, of whom nearly one in four (71;24%) said they had been abused as a child, compared to about one in five (14,406; 19%) in those who did not develop multiple sclerosis (77,697).
After controlling for potentially influential factors including smoking, obesity, level of education and household income, women who had been abused as children were more likely to be diagnosed with MS.
Inflammatory disease
According to the researchers, childhood abuse can disrupt brain and glandular signaling – the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis – and cause a pro-inflammatory state conducive to the development of this inflammatory and degenerative disease of the brain and spinal cord.
MS can ultimately affect all the functions of the nervous system, to varying degrees depending on the patient: vision, motor skills, balance and coordination, sensations, sphincter controls, memory and intellectual abilities.