A new study finds that people who develop multiple sclerosis are more likely to have conditions such as depression, constipation, and urinary tract infections five years before their MS diagnosis than people who do not develop MS. The study also found that sexual problems and bladder infections, or cystitis, are more likely in people who later develop MS.

The study, led by researchers at Sorbonne University, in Paris, involved 20,174 people newly diagnosed with MS. They were each matched with three people who did not have MS of the same age and sex, for a total of 54,790 people. The people with MS were also compared to 30,477 people with Crohn’s disease and 7,337 people with lupus.

Researchers then used the medical records database to see whether the participants had any of 113 diseases and symptoms in the five years before and after their diagnosis, or before that matching date for the people who did not have an autoimmune disease.

The people with MS were 22 percent more likely to have depression five years before their diagnosis than the people without MS. They were 50 percent more likely to have constipation, 38 percent more likely to have urinary tract infections, 47 percent more likely to have sexual problems, and 21 percent more likely to have cystitis, or bladder infections.

For depression, 14 percent of the people with MS had prescriptions for antidepressants five years before diagnosis, compared to 10 percent of the people who did not have MS. By five years after diagnosis, 37 percent of people with MS had antidepressant prescriptions, compared to 19 percent of those without MS.

A limitation of the study was that data was not available for other factors that could influence people’s risk of developing MS, such as education level, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

The study was is published in the journal Neurology.