Smoking, dyslipidaemia increase lesion burden in MS

Individual vascular risk factors appear to affect MS-specific white matter brain lesions differently, with smoking and dyslipidaemia having a direct influence on pathology, researchers say.

A UK team compared brain MRIs of 92 people with MS who had no vascular risk factors with 106 people with MS who had one or more risk factors, including self-reported smoking, arterial hypertension, dyslipidaemia or diabetes mellitus.

The cases and controls were drawn from five centres and were age- and sex-matched, with patients excluded if they had experienced stroke or