MS hereditary from father to children ?

[NINOU]

Hi,
I'm living in France. I'm father of 3 children born in 1988, 1990 and 1995.
I'm 56. I have got MS in 2001. I'm now SPMS
One of my daughters is stressed to have MS and she finds every month a new (imaginery ?) symptom.
Have you heard some cases of hereditary MS from a father to her daughter ?
Thanks

[lyndacarol]

Hi,
I'm living in France. I'm father of 3 children born in 1988, 1990 and 1995.
I'm 56. I have got MS in 2001. I'm now SPMS
One of my daughters is stressed to have MS and she finds every month a new (imaginery ?) symptom.
Have you heard some cases of hereditary MS from a father to her daughter ?
Thanks

MS is not a true hereditary disease, although it is common for MS to run in families.

There was an article in the Chicago Tribune, January 5, 2003, that told about a family in PawPaw, Illinois (tiny agricultural town of 850 near Rockford). Harold Ikeler's family has been targeted by MS--his wife died of it, all three of his daughters have it, and five grandchildren have it!

This was a case of the mother in a family and her daughters having MS. There are also cases of the father and children having MS. In my opinion, these family clusters are due to a system weakness or a shared diet or lifestyle.

At the time of the article, a resident had tracked down 14 current and former residents with the disease.

Vitamin D deficiency can cause MS-like symptoms. I suggest that you and your 3 children ask your doctors for a vitamin D test. (Also, ask for your own copy of the test results. You need to have the actual number results.)

[Music]

Hi NINOU,

I guess every family is different. I'm not related to one person with MS and my Mom's family is BIG.

Take care.

[David1949]

Found this at the National Multiple Sclerosis society's website;

Genetic factors are thought to play a significant role in determining who develops MS.

The average person in the United States has about one in 750 (.1%) chance of developing MS.
For first-degree relatives of a person with MS, such as children, siblings or non-identical twins, the risk rises to approximately 2.5-5%— with the risk being potentially higher in families that have several family members with the disease.
The identical twin of someone with MS (who shares all the same genes) has a 25% chance of developing the disease. If genes were solely responsible for determining who gets MS, an identical twin of someone with MS would have a 100% chance of developing the disease; the fact that the risk is only one in four demonstrates that other factors, including geography, ethnicity and the elusive infectious trigger, are likely involved as well.

Research has demonstrated that MS occurs in most ethnic groups, including African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics/Latinos, but is most common amongst Caucasians. Susceptibility rates vary among these groups, with recent findings suggesting that African American women have a higher than previously reported risk of developing MS.

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/What-i ... #section-3

[ElliotB]

While the official view is that it is not, based on personal experience and reading about so many others that have MS within their family history, I don't know if I believe the so called experts. I don't think anyone knows for sure. As a precaution, I have all my children monitoring their vitamin D levels and have them taking higher than normal doses of vitamin D and have suggested other preventative measures to them.

[MStranslate]

Hi all,

Happy to contribute to this discussion. The previous comments are correct - MS is not a genetic disease, but it does have a genetic component. What does that mean? It means that it doesn't follow the true pattern of a genetic disease, where we can work out based on genetic screening whether or not children will develop the disease. However, we do know that the presence of certain forms of genes does increase your chances of getting MS. Therefore, these can be passed through families as well.

What we have realised through research is that there is also a strong environmental component to MS (possible examples being sunlight exposure/vitamin D levels, smoking, environmental toxins, infections etc). It seems to be that it isn't the presence of the genetic factors or the environmental factors that is important, but more the interaction between the two. We have a number of different articles and interviews on our website that look into the role of genetics and MS. You can view these at the link below:

http://www.mstranslate.com.au/?s=genetics

Hope this helps!

[NINOU]

Thanks a lot for your answers.
All the best