Michigan State University researchers have identified a potential genetic target for treating an especially painful and invasive form of endometriosis.

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There is a rapid increase in the aging population worldwide. In the United Stated, estimates indicate that almost 40 percent of population in the country will be over 65 years of age by 2030.

As an individual lives longer, the person’s skin becomes biologically or chronologically aged and it gets exposed to several environmental factors, like sunlight. These factors can cause the skin some age-related damages.

Apart from environmental factors, the aging of a person’s skin greatly depends on their ethnicity, according to a study. The study found that genetic factors can delay aging in some people. For example, the African American population may experience aging much later than their white counterparts.

The review study published in the journal Clinics In Dermatology analyzed more than 40 articles published between 1970 and 2018 through PubMed. All the previous studies focussed on the association between skin aging and ethnicity.

The information in the articles suggested that environmental factors, such as ultraviolent rays from the sun, can damage all types of skin types. Among this damage caused from exposure to ultraviolet rays are loss of collagen, skin discoloration and skin cancer. But the effects of skin aging vary depending on the key differences in melanin and fibroblasts, the review study reported.

“Aging is inevitable, and each person will have a unique experience with how their skin changes as it ages,” study author Neelam Vashi, who is the director of the Center for Ethnic Skin at Boston Medical Center and an associate professor of dermatology at Boston University School of Medicine, said in a statement.

Fibroblasts, which is a type of cell that promote collagen production and wound healing, “account for increased skin thickness of African-American patients, resulting in wrinkles that appear several years later than (in their) white counterparts,” the research stated.

The study further stated that East Asian people are likely to experience hyper pigmentation early in the aging process, but the appearance of wrinkles will be delayed in them. Also, Hispanic people will experience delay in the appearance of wrinkles.

However, people of Caucasian descent, such as the North African, European and Southwest Asian ancestry, commonly have thinner skin. So, they experience loss of skin elasticity, wrinkles and reduced lip volume early in the aging process.

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Since 1975, there has been an influx in the number of obese adults. According to surveys, the rise in the number of obese cases amounts to a three-fold increase. Experts say that even if obesity has been driven mainly by the structure of one’s diet and lack of exercise, it is very important to note that genes also play a huge role.

According to a recently published study, the unhealthy lifestyle is even harder to resist, especially for people who are genetically predisposed to have a wider girth. The study highlights how genetic predisposition could lead to higher rates of weight gain.

As the standard measure for a body mass index (BMI) is calculated on the basis of height and weight, for a person to reach a BMI of 20 to 30 would mean the person is overweight, while 30 and above classifies a person as obese. Previous studies have shown that obesity is a major risk factor for heart attacks, diabetes, stroke, and some cancers.

Surveys have shown that about 4% of adults had a BMI of 30 or higher during the mid-1970s. The rate would rise to 13% by 2016 according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Currently, overweight cases account for 39% of adults. This covers an age group of 18 years and older with a count of about 2 billion people. From that count, 700 million are clinically obese.

Maria Brandkvist, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, worked with a group of scientists to study the relative impact of one’s environment and genes on obesity by reviewing the data of nearly 120,000 people in Norway whose height and weight regularly measured from 1963 to 2008.

50% of the individuals that were monitored were divided into five groups depending on the degree of their genetic susceptibility to obesity. The team compared the two groups from the extreme sides for the study, where they found out that most 35-year-old men having the genetic variants that favor weight gain were already heavier in the 1960s as compared to men of the same age who did not have genes that induced a fat physique. According to scientists, the same pattern is followed by women. However, for women, the increase in obesity cases are smaller.

Even if the scientists presented a strong link between the genetic profiles and the degree of obesity, The study authors have cautioned the public that the study cannot determine the direct cause and effect relationship for the topic, and more research needs to be conducted.

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High levels of iron in the liver are linked to a number of serious health conditions including cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular as well as liver disease. But measuring liver iron is difficult and until recently could only be done through an invasive biopsy.

Now researchers from University of Exeter, UK, together with colleagues from the University of Westminster,London, UK, Lund University, Sweden and Perspectum Diagnostics, Owford, UK, have shown that genes regulating iron metabolism in the body are responsible for excess liver iron. These genes are the driving cause of high levels of iron in the liver in populations of European, especially Celtic, ancestry, and suggest that this is most likely a systemic and not organ-related problem. This finding can point the way to simple strategies for reducing the excess. The research is presented at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Monday).

Dr Hanieh Yaghootkar and colleagues carried out genome-wide association studies on liver iron content, measured via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in 8200 volunteers who had provided biological samples to the UK Biobank. Genome-wide association studies work by scanning markers across the complete sets of DNA of large numbers of people in order to find genetic variants associated with a particular condition.

They found three independent genetic variants associated with higher liver iron and involved in the production of hepcidin, a protein that regulates the entry of iron into the blood. The results were validated in 1500 individuals whose data had been collected in the pan-European Diabetes Research on Patient Stratification (DIRECT) Consortium. «This is the first time such a study has been carried out in an unselected, large population,» says Dr Yaghootkar.

The investigators used a genetic approach to explore the causal link between higher waist-to-hip ratio and elevated liver iron content. This provided genetic evidence that higher central (abdominal) obesity was associated with increased liver iron levels. « There are animal studies that indicate that fat cells trigger macrophages, a type of white blood cell, to cause inflammation, and that this in turn leads to defective iron handling in the liver. We need to research this association further, but it is a plausible explanation of the phenomenon, » says Dr Yaghootkar.

The fact that the mechanisms causing elevated liver iron were generalised and not organ-specific means that high iron levels probably occur in other organs too, including the brain. The researchers found an association between excess iron and many other disorders, including neuropsychiatric conditions. Because the clinical manifestations of elevated iron levels are so diverse, a multi-specialty approach will be needed to assess and evaluate new therapies, including treating patients with hepcidin to reduce iron accumulation.

MRI is continuing for 100,000 individuals in the Biobank study. « This will allow us to find many more genetic factors associated with this trait. We are also interested in performing such studies in other ethnicities, since our current results are only valid for people of European ancestry, » Dr Yaghootar will conclude.

Chair of the ESHG conference, Professor Joris Veltman, Director of the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, said: “Iron overload is bad for the body and needs to be tightly regulated. The genetic study presented at the ESHG today reveals a key role for genes regulating iron metabolism, and also revealed a link between certain types of obesity and iron overload.”

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