Human skin can be helpful in detecting future cardiac problems in them. According to an international team of researchers, changes in a particular genus causing a rare skin disorder can also cause severe heart disease. Researchers involved in this new information study said that with the help of genetic analysis, skin can help in predicting future medical conditions.
As a well-known skin disease expert, Dr. Yuto has been engaged in detecting mutations associated with family-related genetic skin disorders for the past three decades. Over the past five years, he has analyzed this type of mutation in about 1,800 families worldwide, who are primarily responsible for skin problems such as epidermolysis bullosa (EB).
In the new Research Publica, the authors report that scientists have examined the DNA of more than 360 EB patients. These included a special analysis of DNA isolated from blood samples, which was associated with distinct sequence variants of 21 genes. These genes are known to give a kind of refuge to the mutations that cause EB. This investigation revealed that the mutations found in one gene, JUP, of two patients were exactly the same.
It has been reported in the report that these patients, were seen in early infancy after symptoms related to the skin condition. These included symptoms such as skin weakness, thickening of the skin on the palm and thickening of the soles of the feet, and hair loss, which later reached the eyelids and eyebrows. Apart from these, only skin anomalies (abnormalities) were detected in a two and a half-year-old child. At the same time, a heart condition named ARVC (arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy) has also been detected in a 22-year-old woman. Researchers say that ARVC is a serious disease, in which a heart transplant can happen and the death of the patient can also occur.
Read also: Do you also hurt yourself when sad?
At the time of the investigation, researchers did not find heart disease problems in a two-and-a-half-year-old child, but his genetic results showed that these symptoms would develop later. To this, Dr. Yuto has said, 'This means that by performing a mutation analysis of EB patients at birth, you can know whether they will cause serious health problems later.
These patients need to be monitored in view of heart diseases. At the same time, about his efforts to detect diseases through the skin, Yuto said, "We are detecting new genes that are responsible for skin diseases like EB or Ithiosis. By knowing about the symptoms and family history of the patients, we have uncovered completely unexpected facts. These studies show how our skin can help predict serious medical problems.
