This review analyzed data from fourteen studies involving people with multiple sclerosis and healthy controls. The researchers looked at how these groups reacted to emotional or stress-related stimuli by measuring heart rate, blood pressure, and other autonomic functions.
The main finding was a large reduction in stress-induced autonomic responses in people with multiple sclerosis compared to controls. Within the multiple sclerosis group alone, there was a moderate increase in autonomic responsiveness, though this specific result had a p-value of .079.
No safety concerns or adverse events were reported because the studies did not report them. The authors note that these differences might be linked to central lesions affecting stress-regulation networks. Readers should understand that this is a meta-analysis of existing data and not a new clinical trial. While the results support autonomic reactivity as a potential marker of impairment, they do not prove that stress causes multiple sclerosis or that treating stress will cure the disease.