Batty GD, Gale CR, et al. - This large-scale study to unveil primary risk factors of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) did not provide convincing evidence of associations with ALS for other risk indices, other than well known links.

• A prospective cohort study of 502,649 participants aged 37 to 73 years.

• ALS caused 301 hospitalizations and 279 deaths, during 11 years of event surveillance.

• Increased rates of hospitalization for ALS were evident in relation to being older (hazard ratio per 10 year increase) and male (1.37), post-adjustment for selected confounding factors.

• For death due to ALS, similar effects were apparent.

• Of the remaining 23 social, biological, and behavioral risk indices, however, there was only a suggestion that elevated risk of hospitalization existed in taller people (per SD increase: 1.31).