Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Apr 15;291(1-2):22-9.
doi: 10.1016/j.jns.2010.01.011. Epub 2010 Feb 2.

Association of ALS with head injury, cigarette smoking and APOE genotypes

Silke Schmidt  1 , Lydia Coulter Kwee, Kelli D Allen, Eugene Z Oddone
Affiliations

Association of ALS with head injury, cigarette smoking and APOE genotypes

Silke Schmidt et al. J Neurol Sci. .

Abstract

Objective: An increased risk of ALS has been reported for US veterans, but the cause is unknown. Since head injury and cigarette smoking are two previously implicated environmental risk factors that are more common in military than civilian study populations, we tested their association with ALS in a US veteran study population.

Methods: We used logistic regression to examine the association of ALS with head injury and cigarette smoking in 241 incident cases and 597 controls. Since APOE is a plausible ALS candidate gene, we also tested its main effect and its statistical interaction with these environmental exposures.

Results: Cigarette smoking was not associated with ALS in this predominantly male and Caucasian population. Veterans who had experienced head injuries during the last 15years before the reference date had an adjusted odds ratio of 2.33 (95% confidence interval 1.18-4.61), relative to veterans without any head injuries. This association was strongest in APOE-4 carriers.

Conclusions: Our results add to the body of evidence suggesting that head injuries may be a risk factor for multiple neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS. We hypothesize that the strength of association between head injuries and ALS may depend upon APOE genotype.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Histogram of interval between last head injury and reference date for 79 cases and 183 controls who reported at least one head injury and provided sufficient information to calculate the interval of interest.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. McGuire V, Longstreth WT, Jr, Koepsell TD, Van Belle G. Incidence of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in three counties in western Washington state. Neurology. 1996;47:571–3. - PubMed
    1. Traynor BJ, Codd MB, Corr B, Forde C, Frost E, Hardiman O. Incidence and prevalence of ALS in Ireland, 1995–1997: a population-based study. Neurology. 1999 Feb;52(3):504–9. - PubMed
    1. Kamel F, Umbach DM, Munsat TL, Shefner JM, Sandler DP. Association of cigarette smoking with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Neuroepidemiology. 1999;18(4):194–202. - PubMed
    1. Nelson LM, McGuire V, Longstreth WT, Jr, Matkin C. Population-based case-control study of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in western Washington State. I. Cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption. Am J Epidemiol. 2000 Jan 15;151(2):156–63. - PubMed
    1. Weisskopf MG, McCullough ML, Calle EE, Thun MJ, Cudkowicz M, Ascherio A. Prospective study of cigarette smoking and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Am J Epidemiol. 2004 Jul 1;160(1):26–33. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms