A new study published in JAMA Dermatology examines how the intake of contraceptive pill oral may be linked to a form of hair loss, known as frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA).
Correlation between FFA and contraceptive pill
FFA is a highly painful skin disease associated with inflammation, scarring and irreversible hair loss. The number of people, predominantly women, affected by FFA has been steadily increasing since it was first described in 1994, leading scientists and doctors to conclude that the disease may have both environmental and genetic causes.
The study, undertaken by recent Ph.D. Dr. Tuntas Rayinda, graduate, and led by Dr. Christos Tziotzios, consultant dermatologist and senior lecturer at St. John’s Institute of Dermatology, and Prof Michael Simpson of the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, builds on the previous research of team that identified mutations within certain genes that increase the risk of developing FFA. One of these is the CYP1B1 gene, a gene that codes for a metabolic enzyme responsible for the metabolism of hormones.
An investigation of women with FFA found that those who had a specific version of the CYP1B1 gene were more likely to develop the condition when they also took the contraceptive pill.
Data was collected from women with FFA across the UK between July 2015 and September 2017, who were compared to women who did not have FFA from the UK Biobank. This supports currently existing models of FFA development, which result from a combination of genetic and environmental factors.
In addition to improving our understanding of the combined genetic and environmental factors that drive FFA, the authors hope that these findings can be applied to minimize the risk of its development. The team of researchers is now working to develop and make this genetic test more widely available.
Our study is the first-ever gene-environment interaction study on frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA), a lichenoid inflammatory and healing condition that almost exclusively affects women. We have previously identified a causal variation in a gene related to hormone metabolism, conferring increasing susceptibility to this common and very painful disease.
“We have now demonstrated the contribution of the contraceptive pill to the manifestation of the disease through gene-environment interaction. We are very grateful to all our UK referring clinicians, clinical and research staff, our patients and the British Skin Foundation for financially supporting our work,” says Dr Christos Tziotzios.
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