Children who have higher levels of sun exposure appear to have a substantially lower risk of developing pediatric multiple sclerosis (MS) than children who are less exposed to the sun, new research shows. The use of sunscreen does not appear to affect the risk.
“This is the first study, as far as we are aware, to investigate the effect of sun exposure in pediatric MS,” first author Prince Sebastian, of the ANU Medical School, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, said during a presentation of the research at the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ACTRIMS) 2021.
“In order to reduce the incidence of MS, parents should be encouraged to allow their children to spend at least 30 minutes outdoors in the sun every day, while using adequate sun protection,” Sebastian told Medscape Medical News.
“This is especially important for children with a family history of MS,” he said. As the findings show, “You can use adequate sun protection and still get the benefit of sun exposure in terms of MS risk reduction.”
Low sun exposure, exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light, and vitamin D have been well established as modifiable risk factors for MS in adults. However, research is lacking on the effect of these factors upon patients younger than 18 years who have pediatric MS, a less common form of the disease. Pediatric MS constitutes about 5% of all MS cases.
To investigate the issue, Sebastian and his colleagues evaluated data on 332 patients with pediatric MS who were between the ages of 4 and 22 years. The patients were enrolled at 16 MS centers around the United States. They were compared by sex and age with 534 control persons aged 3 to 22 years who did not have MS.
For the patients with MS, the median disease duration was 7.3 months, and 63% were female. The median age of the patients was 15.9 years.
Compared with those who did not have MS, patients with MS were significantly less likely to have been exposed to cigarette smoke (17.8% vs 14.2%). They were significantly more likely to be overweight (23.8% vs 14.2%), and the median anti-VCA level was higher (3.7 vs 2.2).