Women's Health in the News
Study: Older Siblings at No Higher MS Risk
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Finding challenges long-held theory that birth order plays role
TUESDAY, Aug. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Refuting an earlier theory, new research finds that older siblings do not run a higher risk of contracting multiple sclerosis than their younger brothers and sisters.
The study, published in the online edition of The Lancet Neurology, runs counter to prior findings that children from small families or with early birth-order positions are at higher risk of multiple sclerosis.
Those earlier findings had been explained by the "hygiene hypothesis," which holds that younger children gain more immunity because they are exposed to more infections by their older siblings.
However, until now studies that looked at the link between birth order and multiple sclerosis have been small, making them less reliable.
The current research, conducted by scientists at the University of British Columbia in Canada, and Oxford University in the U.K., involved data on more than 10,900 people with multiple sclerosis and more than 26,300 healthy siblings.
SOURCE: The Lancet, news release, Aug. 21, 2005
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