Men are to blame again

            ROCHESTER, MN - A new study found men transmit Multiple Sclerosis (MS) to their children 2.2 times more often than women in families where the father or mother and a child have MS, Newswise stated. his study involved 444 children of an MS-affected father or mother from 3,598 individuals in 206 families to compare transmission of MS between affected men and women. The findings by scientists from Mayo Clinic, University of California , and Kaiser Permanente were in the journal Neurology. “Fathers with MS tend to have more children who develop MS than do mothers with the disease,” says Dr. Brian Weinshenker, Mayo neurologist and study investigator. “When we looked at a large population of MS patients, when there was a parent and a child who had MS in a family, the child with MS got the disease twice as often from the father rather than the mother.” MS affects approximately one in 1,000 people, and it is twice as common in women as in men. In 85% of cases, no cause is known. For 15% of MS patients, a family member within a generation is affected by the disease. For familial cases, no single gene has been identified that strongly predisposes a person to MS. “A combination of genes and unknown environmental factors work together to cause MS,” says Dr. Orhun Kantarci, Mayo neurologist and lead author of the paper. Scientists theorize men may have a greater “genetic load” of MS genes, which may explain their findings.