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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose any conditions. LifeDNA does not provide diagnostic services for any conditions mentioned in this or any other article.
Sjögren’s syndrome is a health condition that affects the parts of your body that are moist, like your eyes and mouth. Most people diagnosed with Sjögren’s syndrome are over the age of 40. But does that mean it only affects older adults? While it’s more common in people over 40, younger adults and even children can also develop the condition. That’s why it’s important not to overlook early symptoms, no matter your age.
Women are up to 10 times more likely to be diagnosed. Researchers believe this might have something to do with hormones, especially estrogen which may affect how the immune system works. This helps explain why many autoimmune diseases, including Sjögren’s, are more common in women.
By understanding who is more likely to develop Sjögren’s, whether based on age, gender, or other risk factors, we can pay attention to the signs earlier. Early diagnosis can lead to quicker access to proper care, which may greatly improve a person’s comfort, health, and quality of life.
Sjögren’s syndrome is an autoimmune disease. This means the immune system, which normally protects your body from infections, mistakenly attacks your own healthy tissues. In this condition, the immune system mainly targets the glands that produce tears and saliva. These glands are important for keeping your eyes and mouth moist. When they are damaged, your body can’t make enough tears or saliva, leading to dryness.
Dry eyes may cause stinging, itching, blurry vision, or a gritty feeling, like something is stuck in your eye. A dry mouth can feel sticky or chalky, and it may make it harder to speak, eat, or swallow. Without enough saliva, it’s also easier to get cavities or mouth infections.
Moisture glands play a big role in keeping parts of the body comfortable and working well. Tear glands help protect and clean the eyes. Tears wash away dust and keep the eyes smooth so you can see clearly. Without enough tears, your eyes may become irritated, feel gritty, or look red and tired. You may also find it hard to be around bright or flashing lights.
Saliva glands help with speaking, chewing, swallowing, and tasting food. Saliva also protects your teeth and gums from harmful bacteria. When there’s not enough saliva, your mouth may feel dry or sticky. You might have trouble eating dry foods, notice a change in taste, or develop bad breath. Over time, dryness can lead to tooth decay, gum disease, or infections in the mouth.
Because of these reasons, the moisture glands are very important to your everyday health and when they don’t work properly, as in Sjögren’s syndrome, many small but important things in daily life can become more difficult.
Sjögren’s syndrome can cause a range of symptoms, from mild to more serious. These can affect different parts of the body and may develop slowly over time.
Most common symptoms:
Other possible symptoms (when the condition affects more than the glands):
You may want to read: Unveiling the Genetics of Skin Dryness
It is important to note that symptoms vary from person to person, and not everyone experiences all of them. Some people only have mild dryness, while others may have full-body symptoms that impact daily life.
Sjögren’s syndrome is caused by a mix of genetic and environmental factors. This means that a person may be born with certain genes that make them more likely to develop the condition, but something in their environment like a viral or bacterial infection might trigger it to actually begin.
These infections may activate the immune system, and in people who are more sensitive, that immune response may not shut off properly. Instead, like in Sjögren’s Syndrome, the immune system starts attacking the body’s own healthy tissues, especially the glands that make moisture. This mistaken attack is what leads to symptoms like dry eyes and dry mouth. Although researchers believe genes play a role, no single genetic change has been directly linked to causing Sjögren’s syndrome. Instead, it is likely that many small changes in different genes may add up, and increase a person’s risk.
Studies on Sjögren’s Syndrome noticed as early as in the 1940s, that this condition seemed to affect more women than men, and that it involved the whole body, not just the eyes and mouth. By the 1970s, a link between immune system genes, specifically the HLA genes, and autoimmune diseases was acknowledged. In the early 1980s, researchers confirmed genetic differences in people with primary Sjögren’s Syndrome which appears on its own, without any other autoimmune condition. To this day, HLA gene variants remain the strongest known genetic risk factor for Sjögren’s Syndrome. Other gene variations have been found, but they appear to have only a mild to moderate impact.
Even though Sjögren’s Syndrome is one of the most common autoimmune conditions, progress in understanding its genetics has been slow compared to diseases like lupus or type 1 diabetes. Most studies have focused on gene variations already linked to other autoimmune conditions, but these studies often involve small groups of people in specific populations making the findings hard to repeat in other groups. However, newer tools like genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and next-generation sequencing are now helping researchers explore both genetics and epigenetics;how genes are turned on or off. These tools may also help explain problems in the immune system that affect people with Sjögren’s Syndrome (SS).
An early GWAS study by the Silvis group in the U.S., looked at DNA from 10,000 people (some with Sjögren’s Syndrome, some healthy), all of European descent. They found that the HLA region had the strongest link to SS, but six other genetic locations also showed strong associations: IRF5-TNPO3, STAT4, IL12A, FAM167A-BLK, DDX6–CXCR5, and TNIP1. Another 29 regions were found to have a possible association, including genes like TNFAIP3, PRDM1, and FCGR2A.
A second large GWAS study on SS was done in Han Chinese populations. It confirmed some of the same genetic links, such as STAT4 and TNFAIP3, but also found a new gene called GTF2I that was linked to Sjögren’s Syndrome in this group. Interestingly, some gene variations found in Europeans were not significant in the Chinese group. This shows that different populations may have different genetic risk factors for Sjögren’s Syndrome, and it’s important to study people from many ethnic backgrounds.
One important finding from both of these early studies is that no single gene was found to have a strong effect like those seen in other diseases. The genetic changes found in these studies did not seem to directly affect the working parts of the glands that are damaged in Sjögren’s Syndrome like the salivary and tear glands. New research using better tools, and larger groups of people are helping to better understand how both the immune system and the glands are involved in this condition.
You may want to read: What You Need to Know About the Genetics of Lupus
There is no cure for Sjögren’s syndrome, but the good news is that symptoms can be managed with the right treatment. Doctors focus on relieving dryness, protecting your teeth, and reducing pain or fatigue.
