RESEARCH: Possible association between ALS & smoking for women

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Prospective study of cigarette smoking and amyotrophic

lateral sclerosis.

Weisskopf MG, McCullough ML, Calle EE, Thun MJ,

Cudkowicz M, Ascherio A.

Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public

Health, Boston, MA.

Cigarette smoking has been proposed as a risk factor

for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but because

of the low incidence of ALS this association has been

examined only with case-control methods. The authors

prospectively assessed the relation between cigarette

smoking and ALS mortality among participants in the

Cancer Prevention Study II cohort of the American

Cancer Society, a cohort of over 1 million people

enrolled in 1982 who completed a lifestyle

questionnaire including a detailed smoking history at

baseline. Causes of deaths were ascertained through

death certificates; ALS was not identified separately

until 1989. From January 1, 1989, through 1998, 291

women and 330 men died from ALS. The relative risk of

ALS among current smokers compared with never smokers

was 1.67 (95% confidence interval: 1.24, 2.24; p =

0.002) in women and 0.69 (95% confidence interval:

0.49, 0.99; p = 0.04) in men. The difference in the

relative risk estimates between the sexes was

statistically significant (p < 0.0003). This large

prospective study provides limited evidence that

current cigarette smoking may be associated with

increased death rates from ALS in women but not in

men.

Source: Am J Epidemiol. 2004 Jul 1;160(1):26-33.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_uids=1\

5229114 & dopt=Abstract