Background and Aim: There is some evidence that nutrition probably plays a role in the etiology of multiple sclerosis (MS). The present case-control study was conducted in the City of Tehran, Iran with the purpose of finding any possible relations between food groups and MS.
Materials and Methods: In this case-control hospital-based study conducted in 2011 in the City of Tehran, data were collected on several variables including socio-economic status, life style, and food intakes of 70 MS patients and 140 controls matched for age and gender, through interviews and questionnaires. All the statistical tests were done using the SPSS software version 16. Logistic regression was used to calculate the odds ratio (OR).
Results: After adjusting for confounding variables, it was seen that subjects in the upper tertile of intakes of the fruit group, tomatoes, other vegetables, and liquid oils, were significantly less likely to be suffering from MS disease, the odds ratio being 68% (OR: 0.32 95% CI: 0.13-0.79), 82% (OR: 0.18 95% CI: 0.05-0.65), 61% (OR: 0.39 95% CI: 0.93-0.16), and 94% (OR: 0.06 95% CI: 0.08-0.58), respectively. On the other hand, subjects shown to be significantly less at risk of the disease were those in the upper tertile of the intakes of non-liquid oil [ 1.58 times (OR: 2.58 95% CI: 1.05-6.33) ] and soft drinks [1.87 times (OR: 2.87 95% CI: 1.17-7.02)] (p for trend < 0.05).
Conclusion: The findings of this study support the probable role of nutrition in preventing multiple sclerosis.
