Aa
Are any members here of Scottish ancestry?
You guys have probably run across this, but i'm newly diagnosed and I find the following fascinating:
"People living in Scotland who also have a Scottish name are more
than twice as likely to develop multiple sclerosis .... than the English."
Shortly after I was diagnosed and still hobbling around with sticks, people would enquire, "What's wrong?" Then I noticed something rather strange. If that person was Scottish, I didn't have to explain anything! It isn't surprising. In Scotland people who don't know someone - mother, father, grandparents, sister, brother, husband, wife, or friend - who doesn't suffer from MS is fortunate indeed. Is there some connection between multiple sclerosis and people from Scotland? "The Scottish Disease" as it is called north of the Border, occurs more frequently there than in the south of England or other parts of the world. A population study in the Lothian and Borders published in 1998 in "The Journal of Neurology & Psychiatry" reported that twice as many people - 2 per 1,000 in Scotland as opposed to half that number or 1 per 1,000 in England and Wales - suffered from MS. This figure was recently updated when it was discovered that Scotland has 10,500 people with MS, out of a population of 5.1 million. That's a much higher rate than England or Wales. According to a Scottish newspaper if you have a Scottish surname you run twice the risk of developing the illness.
http://www.aspects.net/~janus/ScottishDisease.htm
Okay, so maybe that wasn't the best page, but the BBC has some really good sources on it as well.
"People living in Scotland who also have a Scottish name are more
than twice as likely to develop multiple sclerosis .... than the English."
Shortly after I was diagnosed and still hobbling around with sticks, people would enquire, "What's wrong?" Then I noticed something rather strange. If that person was Scottish, I didn't have to explain anything! It isn't surprising. In Scotland people who don't know someone - mother, father, grandparents, sister, brother, husband, wife, or friend - who doesn't suffer from MS is fortunate indeed. Is there some connection between multiple sclerosis and people from Scotland? "The Scottish Disease" as it is called north of the Border, occurs more frequently there than in the south of England or other parts of the world. A population study in the Lothian and Borders published in 1998 in "The Journal of Neurology & Psychiatry" reported that twice as many people - 2 per 1,000 in Scotland as opposed to half that number or 1 per 1,000 in England and Wales - suffered from MS. This figure was recently updated when it was discovered that Scotland has 10,500 people with MS, out of a population of 5.1 million. That's a much higher rate than England or Wales. According to a Scottish newspaper if you have a Scottish surname you run twice the risk of developing the illness.
http://www.aspects.net/~janus/ScottishDisease.htm
Okay, so maybe that wasn't the best page, but the BBC has some really good sources on it as well.
My father's side is from Wales and France. My mother's side, Wallace is definately Scottish, her father having directly descended from Sir William Wallace. It is an interesting article. Thank you for sharing.
Beth
Beth
I trace my Scottish lineage back to Robert I on fathers side and William of Orange on my Mom's, ( a ******* and an arse hole) but beyond genetics, I think since Scotland is so far north and it gets less sun than the rest of the UK, that D levels could be chronically low in Scottish folks. But who knows really. MS causes are many and varied and THEY don't know with any degree of certainty yet what the root cause of MS is. However its fun to speculate and compare. :)
Jessica J
Jessica J
I think I'm glad my older sister took statistics, and that I didn't have to. ;-D
Dad's family was of German origin, including his mother having been born there, but his father's side was several generations deep in the US.
Every name I could ever find in Mom's family was decidedly Irish, and I traced each of them all the way back to one or another of the 26 counties. At the time, that was only 3 to 5 generations, as I recall. It's been more than 30 years now, so don't ask me which counties!
Of course, I remain unDx...
Dad's family was of German origin, including his mother having been born there, but his father's side was several generations deep in the US.
Every name I could ever find in Mom's family was decidedly Irish, and I traced each of them all the way back to one or another of the 26 counties. At the time, that was only 3 to 5 generations, as I recall. It's been more than 30 years now, so don't ask me which counties!
Of course, I remain unDx...
Here's the original newspaper article used for the aspects.net piece. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ms-more-likely-to-strike-those-with-scottish-genes-1165260.html
And following the string of yarn, here is the original research as published in theThe Journal of Neurology & Psychiatry in 1998. http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/64/6/730.full
Of major note (and of concern if this is being used for broad extrapolations):
Both probable and definite MS were counted.
Only Lothian and Border Health Board Regions of south east Scotland were studied. This is a sub-section of Scotland.
This is from 1998. Not very recent in terms of diagnostic technology or criteria. They used the Poser criteria, in fact. (pre-MacDonald).
The issue of Scottish surnames only pertained to prevalence, not incidence. (number total, versus number presenting initially in any given year) "It should be noted, however, that the increase in the proportion of surnames prefixed with Mc or Mac with latitude within Scotland is not associated with an increase in the prevalence of multiple sclerosis." Yes, this was one of the crude methods they used to determine ancestry. A Mac or a Mc. They even call it crude themselves a couple of times. And still, they're not seen as having a higher rate as they rises proportionately in the population. This gets muddled as it's also related to latitude, which we'd expect to have higher rates for other reasons. This is intriguing yet isn't addressed.
Its conclusion reveals the actual purpose of the study, which at the time was indeed important. They used the study simply to claim that mainland MS incidence and prevalence was equally as high as the remote Scottish island populations, poking a hole in the then-current theory that the island populations had been exposed to an unknown infectious agent.
Certain things were well and truly out of my scope to muddle through critically. "STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
As in most previous studies, the prevalence rates were standardised to the 1961 census population of Northern Ireland.20 Ninety five per cent confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated on the assumption of a Poisson distribution.21" Followed by the sound of crickets in my head.
Of concern to me, "By contrast with some of the recent studies in England and Wales,15-17 we did not review the medical records, or interview or examine all our prevalent cases. It could be argued, therefore, that our high prevalence figures might be due partly to false positive diagnoses" Indeed. Again, 'probables' were counted as well. With the Poser criteria.
In summation, this had more to do with moving closer to the current model of genetics + environment (specifically vitamin D) than it has to do with Scottish people being compared to anybody else, though that context is mentioned in the intro. This was a smallish domestic study. Possibly important at the time, but out-dated today, though some aspects poke out as still being pursued academically today (looking into HLA allele DR2 is still being done as a possible genetic link to MS susceptibility, for example).
All that aside, in America, a Scottish surname may mean squat genetically-speaking. We're particularly, almost uniquely untethered from the surname-ethnic origin connection. Whether it's echoes of slavery and a master's last name (I don't think Hattie McDaniel or Butterfly McQueen had cause for heightened MS concern...) or an Ellis Island official who couldn't be bothered with strings of consonants, don't be too quick to assume that having a certain surname carries much genetic weight unless your family is scrupulously researched and the maternal line is accounted for with equal consideration.
Technically my own surname is Hebrew. But it may be a simple patronym, an assigned surname, a shortened form of a similar name, or Jewish. Darned if I'll ever know! But I do know the other 3/4 of my grandparents had surnames as W.A.S.P.-y as all get-out.
I enjoyed doing this little bit of digging, but at the end it my take-away is just the reminder that there's always more to the story. And that I should have taken statistics...
And following the string of yarn, here is the original research as published in theThe Journal of Neurology & Psychiatry in 1998. http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/64/6/730.full
Of major note (and of concern if this is being used for broad extrapolations):
Both probable and definite MS were counted.
Only Lothian and Border Health Board Regions of south east Scotland were studied. This is a sub-section of Scotland.
This is from 1998. Not very recent in terms of diagnostic technology or criteria. They used the Poser criteria, in fact. (pre-MacDonald).
The issue of Scottish surnames only pertained to prevalence, not incidence. (number total, versus number presenting initially in any given year) "It should be noted, however, that the increase in the proportion of surnames prefixed with Mc or Mac with latitude within Scotland is not associated with an increase in the prevalence of multiple sclerosis." Yes, this was one of the crude methods they used to determine ancestry. A Mac or a Mc. They even call it crude themselves a couple of times. And still, they're not seen as having a higher rate as they rises proportionately in the population. This gets muddled as it's also related to latitude, which we'd expect to have higher rates for other reasons. This is intriguing yet isn't addressed.
Its conclusion reveals the actual purpose of the study, which at the time was indeed important. They used the study simply to claim that mainland MS incidence and prevalence was equally as high as the remote Scottish island populations, poking a hole in the then-current theory that the island populations had been exposed to an unknown infectious agent.
Certain things were well and truly out of my scope to muddle through critically. "STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
As in most previous studies, the prevalence rates were standardised to the 1961 census population of Northern Ireland.20 Ninety five per cent confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated on the assumption of a Poisson distribution.21" Followed by the sound of crickets in my head.
Of concern to me, "By contrast with some of the recent studies in England and Wales,15-17 we did not review the medical records, or interview or examine all our prevalent cases. It could be argued, therefore, that our high prevalence figures might be due partly to false positive diagnoses" Indeed. Again, 'probables' were counted as well. With the Poser criteria.
In summation, this had more to do with moving closer to the current model of genetics + environment (specifically vitamin D) than it has to do with Scottish people being compared to anybody else, though that context is mentioned in the intro. This was a smallish domestic study. Possibly important at the time, but out-dated today, though some aspects poke out as still being pursued academically today (looking into HLA allele DR2 is still being done as a possible genetic link to MS susceptibility, for example).
All that aside, in America, a Scottish surname may mean squat genetically-speaking. We're particularly, almost uniquely untethered from the surname-ethnic origin connection. Whether it's echoes of slavery and a master's last name (I don't think Hattie McDaniel or Butterfly McQueen had cause for heightened MS concern...) or an Ellis Island official who couldn't be bothered with strings of consonants, don't be too quick to assume that having a certain surname carries much genetic weight unless your family is scrupulously researched and the maternal line is accounted for with equal consideration.
Technically my own surname is Hebrew. But it may be a simple patronym, an assigned surname, a shortened form of a similar name, or Jewish. Darned if I'll ever know! But I do know the other 3/4 of my grandparents had surnames as W.A.S.P.-y as all get-out.
I enjoyed doing this little bit of digging, but at the end it my take-away is just the reminder that there's always more to the story. And that I should have taken statistics...
COMMUNITY LEADER
I think the connection, has probably got to do with being further from the equator because it ties in with that theory. The Scottish name though sounds wobbly, thats got to be coincidental. Hmmm by my calculation, the stats are only around 2% of the population (did I get that right?), which doesn't seem all that high to me. Not high enough to be the only reason why your finding Scottish people not asking whats wrong with you, couldn't it just be cultural or coincidence?
As for our Scottish heritage, (we are British) hmmmm well its been speculated on for years, my mother is the only redhead in her generation and preceding, and my daughter and I are the only others since, so where did it come from? :o) family folk-law is that it stems from Scottish raiders of generations past..........grandma never said otherwise. Oddly coincidental but my son has a Scottish name, none is very meaningful but is kind of funny when i think about our family history.
The Scottish connection is interesting, so thanks for sharing!
Cheers.......JJ
As for our Scottish heritage, (we are British) hmmmm well its been speculated on for years, my mother is the only redhead in her generation and preceding, and my daughter and I are the only others since, so where did it come from? :o) family folk-law is that it stems from Scottish raiders of generations past..........grandma never said otherwise. Oddly coincidental but my son has a Scottish name, none is very meaningful but is kind of funny when i think about our family history.
The Scottish connection is interesting, so thanks for sharing!
Cheers.......JJ
My father's side was Scottish and my mother's was Hussein (sp?). Both sides have been here in the US for several centuries.
Interesting to hear about the Scottish link - thanks for sharing that.
Interesting to hear about the Scottish link - thanks for sharing that.
That is interesting. My mother's maiden name is Morrison which is Scottish. Huh.
Okay, sorry. That huge block of text belongs to the site owner.Anyway, it's just very odd and fascinating because my father's has Grave's disease, his mother, and his grandmother, et cetera.The autoimmune problems in my family all seem to stem from Scottish descent, so I really *really* wonder about this.
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