14 DAY TRIAL // A recent research discovered what could be the possible cause that leads to more frequent prostate cancer cases in African-American men and more miscarriages in African-American women. It is all due to some differences in the human genome.
Scientists at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston investigated the statistics which showed that black men are 50% more likely to develop prostate cancer than their white counterparts. Also, black men get to suffer from this particular type of cancer earlier in life and die more often from it. This led scientists to investigate the reasons which influence prostate cancer to be more frequent and also more aggressive in Africa-American men.
Consequently, analyzing the DNA, scientists at Dana Farber Cancer Institute found that dark - skinned men present a flawed segment in their DNA which relates to a group of genes arrayed along chromosome 8. The specific region of the chromosome 8 considered to be the problem which makes black people more likely to develop prostate cancer is the region called 8q24.
"It appears that we found a genetic risk that predisposes to prostate cancer in the general population, but particularly in African-American men. This is the first time that a genetic risk factor for prostate cancer has been found and confirmed in the general population."
"We see the smoke, but don't yet see the fire. I am very excited about this because, among the well-accepted risk factors for prostate cancer, we know that age, family history and ethnicity are strong indicators. Now we appear to have added a fourth," lead researcher of the study Dr. Matthew Freedman stated.
On the other hand, another study conducted by scientists at the Virginia Commonwealth University found that black women present a variation of the SERPINH1 gene which makes them more likely to miscarriage or give birth to premature babies.
"We were interested in finding genetic contributors to preterm birth in African-Americans, because they have a substantially higher risk of delivering a preterm baby than non-black individuals. There are genetic factors that might predispose the 'bag of waters' to break early and result in a preterm birth," said lead researcher Dr. Jerome F. Strauss III, dean of Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Medicine.
The variation of the gene is called the minor "T" allele polymorphism. This variation was found to be typical to African women. It causes levels of a certain protein in the body which stabilizes collagen to decrease. Collagen strengthens the membrane that contains the fluids which surround the fetus.
"This points a finger at this gene as a contributor, a risk factor for pregnancies that will result in a preterm delivery. This could contribute to more than 12 percent of preterm deliveries in African-American women. Just because you are carrying around a bad gene doesn't mean 100 percent of the time you are going to end up with a bad outcome. There are environmental factors that determine whether the gene actually causes the bad effect," explained Dr. Strauss.