The past few decades of multiple sclerosis (MS) research have led to a greater understanding of why some people develop this chronic autoimmune disease. Experts have identified several risk factors for MS, including some that are potentially controllable.
So does that mean that the nearly 1 million people living with MS could have avoided getting this chronic autoimmune disease?
Based on what experts know about MS, the answer is no — or at least not yet. One reason that effective prevention measures have yet to be developed is that the cause of multiple sclerosis is multifactorial: There’s no one thing that we know of that causes MS, says Emily Harrington, MD, PhD, a neurologist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus.
“It’s thought that MS is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors,” says Dr. Harrington. There is also evidence to suggest that people at risk of developing MS have differences in their immune system, she says.“Hopefully in the future we can develop ways to prevent MS from developing. We are not there yet, but I think we are getting closer to developing biomarkers and other ways of catching MS early and preventing it,” Harrington says.
Genetics and Family History Affect Your Risk
Having a family member with MS raises the risk of developing it. Tanuja Chitnis, MD, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Mass General Brigham Pediatric MS Center at Mass General Hospital for Children, both in Boston, says that in studies of identical twins, about 25 percent of people who have an identical twin with MS end up developing MS themselves.
People with a parent, non-twin sibling, or child with MS also have a higher risk. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, while the average person in the United States has a 1 in 750 (0.13 percent) chance of developing MS, the risk rises to 2.5 to 5 percent for first-degree relatives of people with MS.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health in Canada announced study results in June 2016 that showed that, in rare cases, MS can be caused by a single genetic mutation. Only 1 in 1,000 people with MS appears to have this mutation, which causes a rapidly progressive type of MS, and not everyone with the mutation gets MS.
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