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Sjögren Syndrome
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Causes of Sjögren Syndrome

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Although the exact causes for the onset of the disease are not known, it is believed that its origin may be multifactorial, in other words, various factors may be involved, principally at two levels:

  • Constitutional (internal) factors: genetic and hormonal.
  • Environmental (external) factors: viruses, bacteria, toxins, etc.

This is, however, only a hypothesis based on a combination of individual and external factors. Therefore, if a person who has a certain genetic makeup that makes them "susceptible", during the course of their life happens to come across an environmental factor, this may trigger the development of the disease.

How many altered genes must a person have in order to develop the disease? And how many environmental factors, what type, and in what sequence have to interact with this genetic susceptibility to lead to the disease?

Hundreds, or perhaps thousands of interactions, could explain the appearance of the disease in one person, but this may not be true for another. Possibly, for all these reasons, most genetic studies being carried out on patients with Sjögren Syndrome are not useful for the study of these diseases.

It is believed that, in the future, proteomics —the study of the set of proteins expressed in a genome, cell, or tissue— will offer more practical results. Despite the evident predominance of the disease in women, hormone-related studies have so far given confusing results and have no practical application.

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Substantiated information by:

Manuel Ramos Casals

Published: 28 May 2019
Updated: 28 May 2019

The donations that can be done through this webpage are exclusively for the benefit of Hospital Clínic of Barcelona through Fundació Clínic per a la Recerca Biomèdica and not for BBVA Foundation, entity that collaborates with the project of PortalClínic.

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