Salivary IL-1ß as an Objective Measure for Fatigue in Multiple Sclerosis?

Abstract

Background: The causes of fatigue in multiple sclerosis (MS) and other inflammatory disorders are not well understood. One possible cause that might explain fatigue in inflammatory disorders appears to be the immunological process itself, triggering neural activity that is experienced as fatigue.Objectives: To investigate whether salivary IL-1ß concentration, associated with systemic inflammation, is related to subjective fatigue in MS.Methods: 116 MS patients (62 relapsing remitting MS, 54 secondary progressive MS) and 51 healthy controls participated in this study. Salivary concentration of IL-1ß was determined using a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit. Fatigue was assessed using various fatigue scales. We compared IL-1ß concentration between groups and performed regression analyses to investigate which variables best predict fatigue scores.Results: We found that the IL-1ß concentration best predicts fatigue scores in relapsing remitting MS patients, even though the IL-1ß concentration did not differ significantly between relapsing remitting MS patients and healthy controls. Secondary progressive MS patients showed a somewhat elevated IL-1ß concentration compared to relapsing remitting MS patients and healthy controls. Furthermore, disease modifying treatment had a significant effect on the IL-1ß concentration, with treated patients showing a lower IL-1ß concentration than non-treated patients.Conclusions: The present study points to a significant relation between the proinflammatory cytokine IL-1ß and fatigue in relapsing remitting MS patients. It also suggests a potential effect of disease modifying treatment on the peripheral IL-1ß concentration.

Depression and Inflammatory Markers in Veterans With Multiple Sclerosis

“…Anti-inflammatory cytokines were found to be associated with lower depression scores The biological functions and health effects of this inflammatory marker, however, require further investigation. Our mean cytokine results are similar to those reported in other studies that reported IL-1β in saliva (Hanken et al, 2018) and IL-6 and IL-10 in blood in adults with MS (Sorenson et al, 2013). It should be noted that our study discussed time of saliva collection while others did not.…”

“…Even though we adhered to careful and standardized methods for saliva collection of cytokines, additional studies are needed in a larger sample to control for confounders (e.g., prior studies used blood measured cytokines; Milrad et al, 2018;Sorenson et al, 2013;Schmidt et al, 2016;Tsuboi et al, 2018;Wiener et al, 2019). However, we expect that the impact of these confounders is small because several authors have measured cytokines with saliva (Ghazali et al, 2017;Hanken et al, 2018;Szabo et al, 2016;Williamson et al, 2012).…”

High-density lipoprotein cholesterol is associated with multiple sclerosis fatigue: A fatigue-metabolism nexus?

“…Recently, Hanken et al reported associations between salivary interleukin-1-beta and MS fatigue. 61 It has generally been challenging to identify clinically useful cytokine biomarkers of inflammation in MS because cytokines are locally acting and short lived.…”

Effect of the Chinese Medicine YangZheng XiaoJi on Reducing Fatigue in Mice with Orthotopic Transplantation of Colon Cancer

“…These inflammatory factors can both act directly on the central nervous system and affect the HPA axis [10, 11]. Some scholars also have found that elevated levels of IL-1 β in peripheral blood activate the vagus nerve, which in turn leads to fatigue [12].…”