Epidemiology

Abstract

MS is the more frequent cause of neurological disability in young adults apart traumatic brain injury; it is clearly more frequent in women than in men; the long-standing statement that MS prevalence and incidence increase with the distance from the equator has been challenged by more recent research; differences in the frequencies of the disease in different populations and races in the same country have been, instead, confirmed. Data coming from migration's studies have to be interpreted in the light of racial influence. Epidemiological data can support the genetic as well the environmental hypothesis on the aetiology of MS.