A new study seems to have deciphered the root cause of Viking Disease, also known as Dupuytren’s contracture.
Scientists have previously claimed there aredifferent reasons that people can develop the disease, but a genetic link may have been discovered that sheds light on a possible new key factor.
What are the symptoms of Viking Disease?
The disease impacts the tissue in the skin of a hand, making it thicker and less flexible. This leads to one or more of the fingers being permanently bent forward.
The unusual ailment starts with small, hard nodules under the skin of the palm. Over time, these thicken and form cords that pull the finger forward. Eventually, the cords become so firm that the patient cannot straighten their finger at all. While it can affect any finger, it is often seen in the ring and pinky fingers.
It is treated via a fasciectomy, which sees a cut made along the patient’s palm and finger to straighten it, a needle fasciotomy which sees needles inserted into several places along the palm and finger to straighten it, or a derma-fasciectomy, which involves skin-graft surgery.
In the past, scientists realised there were several risk factors that seemed to impact the disease’s development, including the patient’s age, whether they smoked and consumed lots of alcohol, if they had diabetes or epilepsy, and more.
In 2015, a Danish group of researchers had found a genetic link, with Dupuytren’s contracture having a heritability of 80 per cent.
And other studies over time have proven that Northern Europeans are more likely to suffer from the condition than those with an African heritage. A 1999 study, for instance, found that 30 per cent of Norwegians over the age of 60 had it. This led to the disease being nicknamed Viking Disease.
A recent study that looked at more than 653,000 people’s data found 61 genome-wide significant variations that had a link with the ailment. Three of these led the scientist to conclude that the disease might actually be linked to Neanderthal heritage.
Studies suggest that those with a sub-Saharan African background have very little genetic links to Neanderthals and Denisovans, who often lived across Europe and Asia until 42,000 years ago. This would explain why Europeans are more likely to suffer from the disease.
Hugo Zeberg, assistant professor at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the Karolinska Institutet, explained their study, saying: “Since Dupuytren’s contracture is rarely seen in individuals of African descent, we wondered whether gene variants from Neanderthals can partly explain why people outside of Africa are affected.
“This is a case where the meeting with Neanderthals has affected who suffers from illness,” Zeberg added, “although we should not exaggerate the connection between Neanderthals and Vikings.”
