Year: 2020
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Introduction: Susceptibility to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is associated with smoking in some studies, but it is not clear which aspect of smoking behavior is related. Using detailed records of lifetime smoking we investigated the relationship between smoking and ALS in a UK population. Methods: In this retrospective case-control study, smoking status was collected using environmental questionnaires from people diagnosed with ALS between 2008 and 2013 and from age, sex and geographically matched controls. Categorical measures of smoking behavior were: smoking at the time of survey and smoking initiation; continuous measures were intensity (cigarettes per day), duration (years from starting to stopping or time of survey), cigarette pack years, and comprehensive smoking index (CSI), a measure of lifetime smoking. We used logistic regression to assess the risk of ALS with different combinations of smoking variables adjusted for age at survey, gender, level of education, smoking status and alcohol initiation, selecting the best model using the Akaike Information Criterion. Results: There were 388 records with full smoking history. The best-fitting model used CSI and smoking status at the time of survey. We found a weak association between current smoking and risk of ALS, OR 3.63 (95% CI 1.02–13.9) p value 0.05. Increase in CSI score did not increase risk of ALS: OR 0.81 (95% CI 0.58–1.11) p value 0.2.Conclusion: There is weak evidence of a positive effect of current smoking on the risk of ALS which does not show dose-dependence with higher levels of lifetime smoking and maybe a false positive result.
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Neurology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funders: South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Wellcome Trust, EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research, National Institute for Health and Care Research, Motor Neurone Disease Association, King's College London, Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, Medical Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council
Awards: G119964413, G1332191200, G1394153703, A Programme for ALS Care in Europe (ALS-CarE), G177484282, NIHR Senior Investigator Award, G1844089555, G2208823066, G2473961061, G2520054049, G2813660310, G2841891430, G2852867444, G311130357, JPND Biological Resource Analysis to Identify New MEchanisms and phenotypes in Neurodegenerative Diseases (BRAIN-MEND), G4555088191, G522893879, G558236491, STRENGTH, Mendelian randomization to hypothesis-free causal inference, G7419370404, G7689853932
OpenAlex ID: W3010784988