'Kissing disease’ among teenagers may trigger multiple sclerosis: report - Fox News

Infectious mononucleosis – also known as "mono" or "the kissing disease" – in childhood or adolescence is associated with an increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) as an adult, according to a new study.

They estimated the risk of an MS diagnosis associated with MS in childhood, adolescence and early adulthood using STATA for data analysis and Conventional Cox proportional hazards regression models. .

The authors adjusted for sex, parental MS diagnosis, birth order and parental age at birth, and the group said second-degree fractional polynomials suggested that parental age at birth was linearly associated with risk of an MS diagnosis. .

The team also took into account the health of the participants' siblings – which could make the difference in confirming or discounting the role of familial genetics in the development of MS – and fractional polynomials for the stratified Cox proportional hazards regression also suggested that parental age at birth was linearly associated with risk of an MS diagnosis. .

Results from stratified Cox proportional hazards regression indicated that being female and older maternal age at birth were associated with increased risk of an MS diagnosis, while later-born children were at lower risk of being diagnosed with MS compared with first-born children.

The paternal age at birth was not associated with an increased risk of an MS diagnosis.

Infectious mononucleosis in childhood and adolescence – with a higher risk in adolescence – was associated with an increased risk of an MS diagnosis that remained significant after controlling for shared familial factors in stratified Cox proportional hazards regression.

"These findings suggest that IM in childhood and particularly adolescence is a risk factor associated with a diagnosis of MS, independent of shared familial factors," the authors said. .

"Hospital-diagnosed [mono] in childhood and most notably in adolescence was associated with increased risk of a subsequent MS diagnosis, independent of measured and unmeasured shared familial factors addressed by stratified Cox proportional hazards regression.