Adverse Childhood Experiences and MS

My counsellor had mentioned to me a while ago that there had been some research linking Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and MS.

I know that having a higher number of such traumatic or troubling ACE's - think, parents divorcing, a house fire, domestic violence, assault and abuse, severe bullying, the death of a parent or sibling, drug use in the home, extreme poverty, homelessness, etc - is linked with a huge number of later behaviours and conditions. These include things like teen pregnancy, smoking, drug and alcohol use, divorce, likelihood of being imprisoned or convicted of a crime, all things that kind of make logical sense.

But they're also increasingly being linked with diseases, like MS. It may simply be that it's due to the behaviours ACE's can contribute to, which themselves increase the risk of developing MS, such as smoking and obesity. But there may be more to it. I saw one paper that said

"ACEs influence multiple biological pathways that are relevant to MS. A toxic stress response contributes to altered function of the neuroendocrine and neuroimmune systems, and to genetic and epigenetic changes that increase susceptibility to MS." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10855716/#:~:text=ACEs%20influence%20multiple%20biological%20pathways,that%20increase%20susceptibility%20to%20MS.

(That whole paper is fascinating)

Another study looked specifically at abuse, and found that

"women who were exposed to childhood sexual or emotional abuse had an increased risk of developing MS. There was a similar tendency for exposure to physical abuse. The risk estimates were higher when exposed to several abuse categories, indicating a dose–response relationship."

https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/93/6/645#

This study actually controlled for things like smoking, suggesting a risk outside of just the behavioural correlations.

What are your thoughts on this idea? Does it ring true for you personally, and how do you feel more broadly about this more integrated view of the person in medicine?