What is MS

What is MS?

Multiple Sclerosis is a central nervous system disease that disrupts the information flow within the brain and the body, and between the brain and the body. The exact cause of this disease is still unknown, but it’s believed that it is triggered by some environmental factor in a person who is genetically predisposed to respond. In mild cases, MS involves numbness in the limbs, but in severe cases one may become paralyzed or lose the vision. Multiple Sclerosis

The most common symptoms:
• Muscle weakness
• Vision difficulties
• Problems with coordination and balance
• Numbness and tingling in limbs
• Memory loss
• Bladder and bowel problems
• Fatigue, emotional changes and sometimes depression

• Muscle spasms
• Sexual dysfunction

In the central nervous system, nerve fibers are protected by myelin sheath, which also helps the nerves to conduct electrical signals efficiently. When one is diagnosed with MS, his myelin sheet disappears in multiple areas, leaving a scar.Multiple sclerosis literally means multiple scar tissues.

Types of MS:

• CIS (clinically isolated syndrome): A single, first episode, with symptoms lasting at least 24 hours.
• RRMS (Relapse-remitting Multiple Sclerosis): This is the most common type that affects 85% of all people diagnosed with MS.
• PPMS (Primary progressive MS): In this type of MS, symptoms worsen progressively. This type is diagnosed in 15% of cases.
• SPMS (Secondary progressive MS): After initial episode, or relapse and remission phase, it progresses steadily.

It is considered that more than 2.3 million of people worldwide suffer from MS. The disease is not contagious, cannot be directly inherited, but scientists have found some factors that have proven to influence the development of this disease.

The risk factors:

• Gender: MS is two to three times more likely to occur to women than men.
• Genetics: Although this disease is not hereditary, genetics nevertheless affects the increase in the risk factors of the disease. If one from your immediate family is suffering from MS, the chance that you get diagnosed wit he same disease is about 2.5%. When it comes to identical twins, if one person gets diagnoses, the chances that the other will be too is 25 percent.
• Age: Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50. It cannot occur in young children and older adults.
• Geography: MS is more common in areas farthest from the equator. It is particularly interesting that immigrants take over the risk coefficient of MS of the territory they are currently located. If they move from one country to another as children, the risk factor for the newly populated area will immediately apply to them. When it comes to the elderly, it is possible to show up to the next generation. Many scientists believe that this shows a connection between vitamin D and onset of MS.
• Smoking: A tobacco intake showed to increase the MS risk factor.
• Obesity: The obesity in childhood and adolescence, especially in girls increases a person’s risk of developing MS.