Signs of a rogue immune system may be present more than a decade before the debilitating physical symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) reveal themselves.

A new study found poor mental health may be one of the earliest hints of this disease, which impacts about 2.8 million people globally .

University of British Columbia epidemiologist Marta Ruiz-Algueró and colleagues investigated the medical histories of 2,038 patients with MS in Canada and compared them to 10,182 patients without.

They found patients who went on to develop MS had presented to their physicians with symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, dizziness, anxiety, and depression more often than the general population.

What's more, these clues appeared as early as 15 years before more established symptoms were first detected.

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