MS Patients Who Smoke Have Lower Quality of Life

By Lorraine L. Janeczko

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with multiple sclerosis (MS) who smoke have a worse quality of life than non-smokers, according to a new study.

"Evidence suggests that smoking accelerates progression in MS, yet some individuals with MS continue to smoke," said Dr. Douglas D. Gunzler of the Center for Health Care Research and Policy at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

"We compared smokers to non-smokers and found that smokers had a lower quality of life and reported greater decrements in disability across multiple functional domains," Dr. Gunzler told Reuters Health by email. "Considering that many smokers with MS engage in smoking as a coping strategy, these findings reinforce the need for MS-tailored smoking cessation programs."

Dr. Gunzler and his colleagues examined data on 950 MS participants who responded to the Spring 2014 North American Research Committee on MS (NARCOMS) survey, comparing smokers to non-smokers.

Overall health-related quality of life (HRQOL) as assessed by the Short Form-12 version 2 was significantly lower for smokers even after adjusting for a number of confounders, the team reports in Multiple Sclerosis Journal, online January 6. The adjusted physical component summary was 3.81 points lower in smokers than non-smokers, while the mental component summary was 4.58 points lower.

Except for mobility, MS patients who smoked also had significantly more disease activity and significantly greater deficits in all Performance Scales and Functionality Scales. While smokers and non-smokers had similar scores on Patient Determined Disease Steps, smokers had significantly worse global disability scores.

Dr. Farren Briggs of the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, who also worked on the study, told Reuters Health by email, "It is established that smoking is a risk factor for MS, and evidence is accumulating that it also accelerates the progression of MS."

"However," he noted, "these studies on progression have focused primarily on ambulation, and little is known about the impact of smoking on other functional domains (i.e., cognition, vision, dexterity). This study demonstrates that smokers with MS have greater disability across multiple functional domains not commonly evaluated, and their perceptions of their physical and mental health were significant lower, even after accounting for age, disease duration, and other possible confounders."

"We hypothesized that smokers would like have greater disability but did not anticipate the pervasive impact across all functional domains," he added. "Also, individuals with a chronic disease, such as MS, are more likely to have decreases in their quality of life, but we did not expect such a strong difference between smokers and non-smokers: smokers were two times more likely to have below average physical and mental quality of life."

SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2jUdEDi

Multi Scler J 2017.

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