ArticleBMC neurology2010
Association of smoking with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis risk and survival in men and women: a prospective study.
Article in BMC neurology, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 64 citations in OpenAlex.
- Time-trend evolution and determinants of sex ratio in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: a dose-response meta-analysis.Journal of neurology · 2021Pooled it
- Smoking and the risk of neurodegenerative diseases in a Chinese case-control study.BMJ neurology open · 2026Article
- Improving social determinants of health documentation in French electronic health records using large language models.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Dicer Is Involved in Cytotoxicity and Motor Impairment Induced by TBPH Deficiency.Current issues in molecular biology · 2025Article
- An extensible and unifying approach to retrospective clinical data modeling: the BrainTeaser Ontology.Journal of biomedical semantics · 2024Article
- Impact of tobacco smoking on disease-specific outcomes in common neurological disorders: A scoping review.Journal of clinical neuroscience : official journal of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia · 2024Article
- Spinal cord neurone loss and foot placement changes in a rat knock-in model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Type 8.Brain communications · 2024Article
- The influence of environmental risk factors in the development of ALS in the Mediterranean Island of Cyprus.Frontiers in neurology · 2023Article
- The Impact of Lifetime Alcohol and Cigarette Smoking Loads on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Progression: A Cross-Sectional Study.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- UK case control study of smoking and risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis & frontotemporal degeneration · 2020Article
- Better survival in femaleTranslational neurodegeneration · 2019Article
- Long-Term Air Pollution Exposure and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in Netherlands: A Population-based Case-control Study.Environmental health perspectives · 2017Article
- Environmental insults: critical triggers for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.Translational neurodegeneration · 2017Review
- Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and the Military: A Population-based Study in the Danish Registries.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2016Article
- Physical Trauma and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Population-Based Study Using Danish National Registries.American journal of epidemiology · 2016Article
- Military Service and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in a Population-based Cohort.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2015Article
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: mechanisms and therapeutics in the epigenomic era.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2015Review
- Military service, deployments, and exposures in relation to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis etiology and survival.Epidemiologic reviews · 2015Review
- Searching for a link between the L-BMAA neurotoxin and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a study protocol of the French BMAALS programme.BMJ open · 2014Article
- Environmental risk factors and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): a case-control study of ALS in Michigan.PloS one · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPrevious epidemiologic studies have examined the association of smoking with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) incidence, but their results have been inconsistent. Moreover, limited information exists on the association between smoking and survival in ALS patients. We evaluated the association of smoking with ALS incidence and survival in a population-based cohort.
methodsWe conducted a case-control study nested in the General Practice Research Database, a computerized clinical database in the United Kingdom. Cases were 1143 individuals with a diagnosis of ALS; 11,371 matched controls were selected among GPRD participants free of ALS. Predictors of survival were determined in the ALS cases. Smoking information was obtained from the computer database.
resultsSmoking was not associated with the risk of ALS in this population. The rate ratio (RR) of ALS comparing ever versus never smokers was 1.04, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.80-1.34. In analysis stratified by gender, however, ever smoking was associated with ALS in women (RR 1.53, 95% CI 1.04-2.23) but not in men (RR 0.75, 95% CI 0.53-1.06). Mortality was 71% after 2.1 average years of follow-up. Old age and female sex were associated with lower survival. Smoking was a predictor of mortality only in women. Comparing ever versus never smokers, RR (95% CI) of death was 1.31 (1.04-1.65) in women, and 0.90 (0.72-1.11) in men.
conclusionIn this large population-based study, smoking was associated with ALS risk and worse survival in women but not in men.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.