Healthy eating index and risk of multiple sclerosis: a case control study

Diet quality indices are unique approach to studying relations between diet and disease. Our objective was to investigate the relationship between healthy eating index (HEI) and risk of multiple sclerosis (MS).
We recruited 68 subjects with MS and 140 control subjects in a case-control study. Dietary intake was collected using a valid and reliable food frequency questionnaire. The HEI was calculated. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the relationship between HEI score and MS, after adjustment for season of the birth, daily amount of imposed stress, total energy intake, and age.
in comparison to controls, Cases had lower scores of total HEI (68.4vs 72.5 ; P = 0.04), vegetable (7.5vs 8.8; P = 0.006), fruit (6.3vs 8.0; P = 0.02), and Food variety (8.0vs 10; P = 0.008).when comparing the highest and the lowest quintiles of HEI ,We observed a significant decreasing trend in the risk of MS (p- for trend=0.04 ). Although insignificant (p- value>0.05), MS risk was reduced when comparing each quintile to the reference quintile (OR = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.37–2.38), (OR = 0.62, 95% CI: 0.24–1.62), (OR = 0.36, 95% CI: 0.12–1.14). ), (OR = 0.38, 95% CI: 0.13–1.19), respectively.
Our study suggests that a high quality diet assessed by HEI may decrease the risk of MS.