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Dupuytren's contracture
- Dupuytren's contracture, often called "Viking Disease," is a disorder in which fingers are bent or frozen. It affects up to 30% of men over age 60 in Northern Europe.(Image credit: BSIP/Getty) Neanderthal genes may be one cause of the disorder nicknamed the "Viking disease," in which fingers become frozen in a bent position, a new study finds.
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Jun 20, 2023 · Mysterious 'Viking disease' linked to Neanderthal DNA. News. By Dr. Alakananda Dasgupta. published 20 June 2023. A new study finds that the key genetic risk factors for Dupuytren's disease,...
- Overview
- Blame it on the Vikings
- Genetic quest
- Major risk factor
Your chances for developing the debilitating hand condition Dupuytren’s contracture may come from your Neanderthal ancestors, according to new research.
Modern humans likely encountered Neanderthals in Europe around 45,000 years ago—and got to know each other rather closely. About 21,500 generations now sit between us and our extinct hominin cousins, but Neanderthals left behind a genetic wake of maladies that millions suffer from today, including a crippling hand condition informally named after the Vikings.
The crippling condition had been commonly known as Viking Disease after surgeon John Hueston observed the high prevalence of northern Europeans and those of northern European descent among his Dupuytren’s patients and incorrectly associated it with the Viking migration across Europe. Its official name comes from Guillaume Dupuytren, who devised and performed the first operation for his namesake disease in 1831.
Dupuytren’s contracture tends to run in families, creating geographical pockets of sufferers in places like Norway and the United Kingdom, where 30% of men over 60 years old and 20% of people over 65 have the condition, respectively. But while earlier physicians theorized this geographic prevalence was the result of Viking populations in northern Europe, the medical community eventually identified the disease in regions Vikings likely spent little time in—such as South Asia—and that its origin must be somewhere else.
The team of researchers, led by Hugo Zeberg of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, set out on a genetic quest for the origins of Dupuytren’s contracture, analyzing hundreds of thousands of pieces of data from biobanks in the United Kingdom, Finland, and the United States. They identified 61 gene variants linked to Dupuytren’s, and not only were three of those genetic variants from our closest known relative, the Neanderthal, but two were considered to be the most important risk factors for the disease.
The findings also shine a light on why there is such a high prevalence of those suffering from the disease among northern Europeans and their descendants today: genetic alterations in that specific population can increase an individual’s susceptibility to Dupuytren’s contracture.
Modern human genomes contain sets of DNA variants that are similar to those found in Neanderthals for two reasons: They either likely inherited these genetic variants from a very ancient ancestor shared between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, or because modern humans interbred with Neanderthals when they met less than 100,000 years ago.
And this isn’t the first time Neanderthal genetic variants have been identified as a considerable risk factor for a disease: In 2020, Zeberg co-authored a groundbreaking study in the journal Nature, identifying a snippet of Neanderthal DNA that increased the risk of a new disease sweeping populations around the world.
“The surprising thing about the Dupuytren’s disease study is the very strong associations.” said Zeberg. “We have only seen this type of strong association to Neanderthal ancestry for the major genetic risk factor for COVID-19.”
An earlier Science study unearthed associations between the genomes of Neanderthals and modern humans who had a range of health concerns, including high blood cholesterol, schizophrenia, rheumatoid arthritis, and eating disorders.
Next up, Zeberg’s team plans to zero in on how DNA from another hominin cousin, the Denisovans, may contribute to our modern genetic makeup.
“In a greater perspective, these findings tell us something about the history of humans,” said Zeberg. “Events that happened in the past have implications today.”
It sometimes was called "Viking disease," since it was often recorded among those of Nordic descent. In Norway, about 30% of men over 60 years old have the condition, while in the United States about 5% of people are affected at some point in time. In the United Kingdom, about 20% of people over 65 have some form of the disease.
- Unknown
- Gradual onset in males over 50
- Trouble preparing food or writing
- Rheumatology
Jun 18, 2019 · Dupuytren’s disease has been given the moniker “ the Viking disease ” due to its prevalence in the north of Europe and those of Northern European descent. According to tradition, the condition was common among the Vikings, who conquered and raided much of Northern Europe, spreading the disease among the populations they intermarried with.
The new findings suggest that the risk of developing Dupuytren's disease, sometimes called "Viking disease," increases when a person has inherited DNA from Neanderthal ancestors. Researchers analyzed more than 7,000 people with Dupuytren's disease – a common condition particularly in northern Europe where people's fingers are permanently bent ...
Jun 14, 2023 · Genetic variants inherited from Neanderthal man appear to be the most powerful risk factors for developing Dupuytren’s contracture -- called the Viking disease because it mainly affects men...
Jun 14, 2023 · Karolinska Institutet. Summary: Many men in northern Europe over the age of 60 suffer from the so-called Viking disease, which means that the fingers lock in a bent position. Now...
