Pediatric Patients With POMS Experience Accelerated Biological Aging, Study Finds

Multiple Sclerosis News Today (6/12, Wexler) reports a study found that “children with pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (POMS) experience biological aging at a faster rate than children without the disease.” For their analyses, researchers “assessed a type of biological aging called epigenetic aging” that refers to “certain chemical modifications in the DNA that influence how specific regions are packaged and how genes in those regions are read.” They utilized “four different models to calculate epigenetic age and, with all four models, epigenetic age tended to be higher in children with POMS.” The results “suggest children with POMS experience accelerated biological aging relative to their peers and the researchers think this may help scientists and clinicians better understand how the disease develops over time.” The study was published in Neurology.