dietary patterns and risk of multiple sclerosis: a Case-Control Study

Nutrition might play a role in the etiology of multiple sclerosis (MS). Since dietary patterns associated with MS risk have not been well studied, this study was performed to evaluate the relationship between MS risk and major dietary patterns recognized by factor analysis in a sample of MS cases in Iran. Methods and Material: A 168-item food frequency questionnaire was used to assess the previous year’s dietary intake of 68 MS cases and 140 matched controls by age and sex, aged 20-60 years, who were admitted to hospital between January-March 2012. Factor analysis was used to define the major dietary patterns and the relationship between dietary patterns and risk of MS was assessed by multivariate logistic regression.

Two major dietary patterns were identified in the study population; Healthy dietary pattern and Western dietary pattern. A significant inverse relationship was seen between dietary pattern 1 and the risk of MS (OR: 0.30, CI: 0.09-0.47, P value

The results shown that following a Healthy dietary pattern was related to a reduced risk of MS and following a Western dietary pattern was marginally related to an increased MS risk, but further research is needed to establish a causal relationship between them.