| If extremely sweaty palms often make you afraid to hold hands with a date or shake hands with a business associate, you're not alone. It turns out that a surprising number of people share the embarrassing problem of hyperhidrosis -- or excessive sweating. And researchers now report that the disorder is genetic.
"Traditionally, this syndrome was thought of as stress-related and has not been taken seriously by the medical community," says lead researcher Samuel S. Ahn, MD, a professor in UCLA's division of vascular surgery. "This is one of the first studies helping to support that 'sweaty palms' is a real physiological disorder that can be passed from generation to generation."
With colleagues from UCLA's department of human genetics, Ahn discovered that as much as 5% of the population -- much higher than the suspected 1% -- suffer from some form of hyperhidrosis.
They took detailed family histories from 49 people with hyperhidrosis and found that two-thirds (65%) of them had other affected family members. In contrast, none of those in a control group of people without sweaty palms reported family members with the disorder.
The findings appear in the February issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery.
"Hyperhidrosis can truly affect one's life and career, such as a police officer dropping a gun and having a suspect literally slip away, or a fireman not being able to pull a hose, or a banker unable to handle money due to severely sweating palms," says Ahn in a news release.
According to the researchers, if one parent has the disorder, their kids have a 28% chance of having it, too. And if a child has the disorder, the parents have a 14% chance of also having it. Hyperhidrosis is not related to sex or ethnicity -- men, women, and people of all ethnic groups are equally affected.
"The strong inheritance pattern and large number of people with family recurrence of the disorder indicate that hyperhidrosis may be caused by a dominant gene," says Ahn. Next, the researchers will be testing the DNA of people with the disorder to try and identify the particular gene or genes to blame.
The sympathetic nerve, the same system that governs the "fight or flight" reaction, causes excessive sweating. It signals blood vessels to constrict, leaving hands and feet cold and sweaty.
If you've been suffering with hyperhidrosis, see your doctor. There is help available. One treatment, pioneered by Ahn, involves minimally invasive surgery to snip the sympathetic nerve connection to the hand. So far, says Ahn, the operation has been 100% successful, with no negative side effects. |
