• Haoyou Xu, Lijun Qiao, Supeng Fang, Zhanneng Ren, Guangliang Wu, Yu Zheng, Biying Yang, and Yuanqi Zhao.
• MD. Physician and Associate Professor, Department of Neurology, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
• Sao Paulo Med J. 2022 Jul 1; 140 (4): 518-524.

BackgroundThere have been inconsistent results regarding the association between alcohol intake and susceptibility to multiple sclerosis.ObjectiveTo assess the potential role of alcohol intake regarding the risk of multiple sclerosis by using a meta-analytic approach.Design And SettingObservational meta-analysis study conducted in a hospital in China.MethodsThe electronic databases of PubMed, EMBASE and the Cochrane library were systematically searched for eligible studies from their inception up to January 2020. The summary odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was applied to assess the association between alcohol intake and multiple sclerosis, using a random-effects model.ResultsOne prospective cohort study and eight case-control studies involving a total of 211,396 subjects and 10,407 cases of multiple sclerosis were selected for the final meta-analysis. From the pooled data, no significant association between alcohol intake and multiple sclerosis risk was found (OR: 0.94; 95% CI: 0.73-1.22; P = 0.668), and this conclusion was judged to be robust. Subgroup analysis found that intake of beer was associated with an increased risk of multiple sclerosis (OR: 1.58; 95% CI: 1.12-2.23; P = 0.010).ConclusionThis study found that beer intake could cause an excess risk of multiple sclerosis. Further large-scale prospective studies should be conducted to verify this conclusion.

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