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Publications

Journal Article Multicenter Study Ppublish

PubMed: 42697107 DOI: 10.1016/j.msard.2026.107677

Longitudinal stability of dietary intake patterns in pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis: A multicenter prospective cohort study.

Mult Scler Relat Disord 115:107677

Authors: Akash Virupakshaiah, Vinicius A Schoeps, Gina Chang, Michael Waltz, Jonathan Race, Soe Mar, Carla Francisco, T Charles Casper, John Rose, Moses Rodriguez, Jan-Mendelt Tillema, Tanuja Chitnis, Mark P Gorman, Leslie A Benson, Jennifer S Graves, Mary Rensel, Aaron Abrams, Lauren B Krupp, Kimberly A O'Neill, Timothy E Lotze, Gregory Aaen, Yolanda Wheeler, Teri Schreiner, Amy T Waldman, Janet Chong, Tyler J Titcomb, Helen Tremlett, Emmanuelle Waubant

Affiliations

  • UCSF School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA, USA.
  • UCSF School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA, USA.
  • University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
  • Washington University in St Louis School of Medicine, Department of Neurology, St. Louis, MO, USA.
  • Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
  • Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
  • Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
  • Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA.
  • Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.
  • NYU Langone Health, NY, NY, USA.
  • Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, TX, USA.
  • Loma Linda University Children's Hospital, Loma Linda, CA, USA.
  • University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
  • Children's Hospital Colorado, Denver, CO, USA.
  • Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • Department of Dietetics and Nutrition, University of Kansas Medical Center, United States.
  • Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, The University of British Columbia, Canada.

Abstract

BACKGROUND

Diet may influence MS activity, but most studies use a single dietary measure. The stability of diet over time in pediatric-onset MS (POMS) is unclear.

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate the reproducibility and short-term temporal stability of dietary intake in youth with POMS using repeated food frequency questionnaires (FFQ).

METHODS

This longitudinal study included participants with a baseline FFQ (the Block Kids Food Screener, 2014). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were estimated using random-intercept mixed-effects models to quantify the relative contributions of between-person and within-person variability. Temporal trends in intake were assessed by modeling time since baseline as a fixed effect, using log-transformed dietary variables to estimate percent change over time.

RESULTS

Of 419 FFQs from 195 participants, 140 (71.8%) completed ≥2 FFQs over a median of 6.5 months (range 2.8-18). ICCs ranged from 0.41 to 0.78 across dietary measures, with the highest reproducibility observed for vegetables and fiber (ICCs 0.78 and 0.72). Log-transformed models showed small declines in several nutrients over time, corresponding to <10% change over a six-month period.

CONCLUSIONS

Dietary intake demonstrated moderate to good reproducibility over the 6 to 18 month follow-up period. Vegetable and fiber intake had the strongest reliability. These findings suggest that reported dietary intake assessed by a single or infrequent FFQ may remain reasonably stable over a 6- to 18-month period in longitudinal POMS studies. However, the moderate-to-good reproducibility observed indicates that within-person variability persists and may attenuate diet-disease associations when only a single dietary assessment is available.

MeSH

Sclerosis, Multiple Sclerosis, Cohort Studies, Diet, Vegetables