Discovery of key genetic link between chronic pain conditions – Medical News Today
Researchers at King’s College London have discovered a link between four common chronic pain syndromes (CPS), suggesting that some people may be genetically predisposed to suffer from conditions of this type. The study, published in the journal Pain, examined identical and non-identical twins and established that IBS, musculoskeletal pain, pelvic pain and dry eye disease may have hereditary links.
pain can severely affect someone’s quality of life and their diagnosis relies on the presentation of symptoms, not on evidence of inflammation or other biomarkers on testing.
The research team, funded by the Pain Relief Foundation, studied more than 8,000 pairs of twins
The sample compared groups of identical twins (sharing 100 per cent of their DNA) and non-identical twins (sharing 50 per cent of their DNA), with the differences between these two groups providing important information about the heritability of the conditions.
Further analysis of different combinations of these CPS in female twin pairs showed that there were also stronger links between the syndromes in the identical group than in the non-identical group, indicative of a genetic link between four of the conditions (migraine was excluded from this second analysis). This suggests a common genetic pathway for CPS in general which was estimated to be 66 per cent heritable.
The presence of a possible genetic predisposition to CPS is also supported by similarities in symptoms and could explain why many sufferers have more than one of these kinds of diseases. Shared symptoms such as fatigue, memory loss, sleep disturbance are often seen.
The overlap found between CPS found in this study is suggestive of an underlying genetic pathway, common for all CPS and could lead to more effective, targeted therapies in the future. This has the potential to significantly increase the quality of life for sufferers of conditions with chronic pain.
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