MS could start up to 15 years earlier than thought, new UBC research suggests

Could doctors of the future one day spot the signs of multiple sclerosis (MS) years earlier than they do now?

It’s an intriguing possibility raised by new research from the University of British Columbia, which suggests the disease’s earliest warning signs may materialize up to 15 years before the first classical neurological symptoms do.

“This is really important,” said senior author and UBC neurology Prof. Dr. Helen Tremlett.

“If you want to prevent MS from occurring at all, if you want to know what causes multiple sclerosis … we need to now make sure that we look much further back in time to avoid thinking that something causes MS when, in actual fact, the disease has already started.”

The study, published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Network Open , came to its conclusions by a