"Men Who Have MS Appear Twice As Apt To Give It To Their Children, Study Says" ...//more: CBS News:
Kids may be more likely to inherit multiple sclerosis (MS) from their fathers than their mothers.

That news, published in today’s issue of Neurology, may, at first glance, seem to defy MS statistics. MS is about twice as common in women as in men.

But "fathers with MS tend to have more children who develop MS than do mothers with the disease," says neurologist Brian Weinshenker, M.D., in a Mayo Clinic news release.

Weinshenker helped conduct the new study. He works at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minn., along with fellow researcher and neurologist Orhun Kantarci, M.D.

The findings shouldn't affect how men with MS are counseled about their children's MS risk, Kantarci says in the news release. The study is "primarily of interest to scientists," he explains.

Checking The Family Tree...The researchers studied 441 children in 206 families who had a father or mother with MS. Of those children, 45 definitely had MS.

Children of fathers with MS were about twice as likely to have definite MS as those whose mothers had MS, even after taking MS risk factors into account, the study shows.

Scientists don't know exactly what causes MS. But they suspect a mix of genetic and environmental factors is involved. The study doesn't pinpoint the reason for the parent-child MS trend. But the researchers have a theory....