Gender and Ethnic Differences in Multiple Sclerosis – MS

Among the other things that we have talked about in multiple sclerosis are some of the gender differences and the differences in ethnic groups, and it’s been very interesting because as a lot of us know, you see more MS the farther away you get from the equator. Despite that, there are certain groups, even those far away from the equator, that don’t get much MS: most interestingly, the Eskimos, who live near the north pole and still don’t have any MS. So, there has to be some influences on ethnicity as well.

We also know that about two and a half times more women than men develop MS, and in fact there was a recent study that suggested that there is an increase in MS across the country, but that increase seems to be only in women. In fact the number of men with MS has seemed to remain fairly stable while the number in women has increased. The reason for that, of course, is completely unknown, and it could – we don’t know, that’s one paper [research study], and it may not be the best case, but the epidemiologic study did suggest that.

As I said, the farther away you get from the equator, the more MS there is. There’s a lot of discussion about the influence of the severity of the disease and gender, and in fact, it’s felt that women probably have milder cases than men in general and that men are more likely to be progressive than women.

It’s also true that African Americans tend to get MS less often than Caucasians although that incidence in African Americans seems to be higher now than it used to be. That may be because we’re better at telling that. But in fact, there is some very soft evidence that perhaps when an African American gets MS, they’re more likely to have a more severe case. So, we know that there are a lot of influences of gender and race and ethnicity and where you live, and a whole list of factors of how that completely plays in, but we’re not sure. There are a lot of questions still to be answered.