Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an auto-immune disease, associated with chronic inflammation and neurological damages. The cause of MS is still unknown, but it is a multifactorial disease where both genetic susceptibility and environmental factors contribute to its development.
Objective: The purpose of this project was to compare whether metabolic parameters and lifestyle, including the eating habits, differ in patients with MS and healthy participants.
Methods: In this case-control study, we matched patients with MS of the FoodMS study with healthy participants of the SwissChronoFood study. The clinical parameters of age (within 5 years), sex and body mass index (BMI, within 2 kg/m2) were used to match MS patients with healthy participants (controls) with a 1:2 ratio. All selected MS patients were newly diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), a low Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score and an absence of relapse. After having collected data, such as vital signs, blood test results, eating habits, sleeping habits and lifestyle, we performed descriptive analyses of baseline characteristics in both groups and by sex, in order to reduce gender bias. We then compared the differences including the presence of cardio-metabolic risks between groups.
Results: Our study included 78 women, with an average age of 34.6 years and an average BMI of 24.9 kg/m2, and 24 men with an average age of 36.6 years and an average BMI of 24.6 kg/m2. Even though we matched them by BMI, we found a significantly greater waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) in MS patients compared to controls, both in women (0.88 ± 0.05 in MS versus 0.84 ± 0.08 in controls, p = 0.01) and men (0.97 ± 0.04 in MS versus 0.89 ± 0.08 in controls, p = 0.02). We also noticed that MS patients ate more often on workdays than control participants in both group (p = 0.048). For other clinical characteristics, vital signs, laboratory tests, presence of metabolic syndrome or central obesity, or other lifestyle parameters, we did not find a significant difference.
Conclusion: Our results show that newly diagnosed RRMS patients have a higher WHR than participants, not affected with MS. Our results are consistent with the existing international literature and results suggest a link between WHR and MS disease in our cohort. It however remains to be determined if a higher WHR is associated with a higher risk of MS and a worse disease outcome with further studies.