Myotonic dystrophy symptoms

[catzzz88]

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Does anyone have an explanation or rationale for why myotonic dystrophy displays frontal balding and cataracts?

I am just curious if there is some rational or if this is just something to memorize. It seems live a very interesting pattern!

 

[worldbeater]

Not sure. But the classic clue is a prominent nose/"beak", and that's due to the facial muscles going through atrophy.

 

[deep582]

Cataract formation is thought to result from decreased lenticular epithelial expression of the "Six5" gene downstream of the myotonic dystrophy protein kinase gene (DMPK) due to trinucleotide expansion (http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v25/n1/abs/ng0500_105.html)
Definitely not worth knowing but very interesting nonetheless

Not sure why you get frontal balding. Maybe related to the metabolic syndrome and/or hypogonadism, but I couldn't find any literature on it