Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Infections, Multiple Sclerosis, Science / 15.01.2022
Compelling Evidence that Epstein Barr Infection is Cause of Multiple Sclerosis
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Kassandra L. Munger Sc.D.
Senior Research Scientist
Alberto Ascherio MD Dr.P.H.
Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: An infectious cause of MS has been hypothesized for decades. Research over the past 20 years conducted by our group and others has strongly suggested a role for EBV infection including that EBV-negative individuals have a near zero risk of developing MS, having a history of infectious mononucleosis (caused by EBV infection) increases the risk of MS 2-fold, and healthy individuals have higher risks of MS with higher antibody levels against EBV antigens. Ideally, to prove causality a randomized clinical controlled trial would be conducted; however, this not a feasible approach in this case. Given that nearly 95% of the adult population is infected with EBV and MS is a rare disease, we utilized the Department of Defense Serum Repository which stores over 60 million serum samples from over 10 million US Military active duty personnel. From this large resource, we were able to identify a cohort who were EBV negative when they joined the military and we followed them for whether they had a primary infection with EBV and then for who developed MS.
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