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Longitudinal analysis reveals high prevalence of Epstein-Barr virus associated with multiple sclerosis

Kjetil Bjornevik, Marianna Cortese, Brian C. Healy

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Jens Kuhle, Michael J. Mina, Yumei Leng, Stephen J. Elledge, David W. Niebuhr, Ann I. Scher, Kassandra L. Munger, Alberto Ascherio

2022 · Science

Statistics & probabilityBiology & medicine
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From the abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system of unknown etiology. We tested the hypothesis that MS is caused by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in a cohort comprising more than 10 million young adults on active duty in the US military, 955 of whom were diagnosed with MS during their period of service. Risk of MS increased 32-fold after infection with EBV but was not increased after infection with other viruses, including the similarly transmitted cytomegalovirus. Serum levels of neurofilament light chain, a biomarker of neuroaxonal degeneration, increased only after EBV seroconversion. These findings cannot be explained by any known risk factor for MS and suggest EBV as the leading cause of MS.

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Original HN comments, with labels from simple text rules. A label describes the whole comment and may miss context or irony. Read the discussion to make up your own mind. About the labels

6 selected excerpts · 6 total mentions

maxall4
Neutral mention · rule
I was part of a team researching MS at a university a while ago. It truly is an endlessly fascinating disease. Most evidence currently points to MS being caused by a combination of Epstein-Barr infection and genetic factors [0,1]. It is hypothesized that Epstein-Barr triggers autoimmunity which results in the prototypical demyelination [2]. [0]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj8222 [1]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2424986122 [2]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04432-7
Original comment Multiple Sclerosis
tommiegannert
Neutral mention · rule
There was a study published in 2022 suggesting that there's a link between Epstein-Barr and Multiple Sclerosis (where the immune system attacks the neuron insulation layer), and that when you get infected affects the outcome. Cleverly, they used blood samples from US service members, who have to do it multiple times in life. https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.abj8222?src=... [PDF]
Original comment Scientists find links between Alzheimer's, herpes, and head trauma
pama
Neutral mention · rule
Yes there is probably a particular virus that’s involved. It is EBV, unfortunately a very common virus that can get reactivated by COVID-19. The picture only got clear this year and there are no great therapies or vaccines yet. In this study from earlier this year, the chance of active military developing MS was 32-times (3,200%) higher for people who had EBV vs those that had other common viruses: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj8222
Original comment Ask HN: HNers with multiple sclerosis, can we get in touch?
amatecha
Neutral mention · rule
It's Epstein-Barr virus. In case you don't want to start reading and then be interrupted with a modal popup like I was. and yeah, more and more studies[0][1][2][3] are indicating the link between EBV and MS: [0] https://journals.lww.com/epidem/fulltext/2000/03000/epstein_... [1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/epstein-bar... / https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj8222 [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31862243/ [3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11481-010-9201-3
Original comment Multiple sclerosis has a common viral culprit, opening doors to new approaches
dm319
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Here's a link to the article [0]. Just a bit of background - 95% of humans will experience infection with EBV at some point in their lives. Once you're infected, it remains latent, only flaring up in particular circumstances. MS is an autoimmune disease, like many others, and this paper does not imply that EBV directly causes MS. Obviously, as so many more people have EBV than have MS, EBV infection does not completely explain why people get MS. Just to put a small caveat to the paper. The comparison is to EBV 'seronegative' population - this is a minority of people (i.e. people who do not have evidence of being infected with EBV). You could argue this is an 'unusual'…
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population in the first place and there's something about them that provides protection from MS. Another point is that EBV is a risk factor, there are other risk factors known too. I think the key to understanding a lot of autoimmune diseases is to understand how our adaptive immune system works. Our immune response is a very complex cell-to-cell interaction between millions of cells all with different roles, and how the immune system decides whether something is a threat or not is not, and how to respond to it, is not yet clear. [0] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj8222
Original comment Multiple Sclerosis Causality

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