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What Is Muscular Dystrophy ?

Muscular dystrophy is a kind of disease caused due to a genetic defect and it makes the muscles in the body weaker and weaker. It affects all kinds of people like children, men and women. Muscles need proteins to develop and these play a very important role in the body. However, the protein that the muscles need is quite different from the proteins we eat. Nonetheless, the proteins we eat are what helps to build the proteins in the muscles.

In muscular dystrophy, depending on the type, there is a fundamental protein that is absent and therefore it will never form also. Because of its non availability the muscles do not build and instead they degenerate. That is why muscular dystrophy is called a degenerative disease. The body’s inability to make these proteins directly affects the muscles and causes an overall weakness in the person. Some people who suffer from these conditions find it very difficult to even walk and sit or stand.

There are different kinds of muscular dystrophy. More than thirty genes have been identified that cause this genetic disease in person. The Duchenne muscular dystrophy is one of the most common types of conditions that affects children, right from newborn to six years mainly. The Becker dystrophy also affects the kids, but the symptoms start showing up at a later age like adolescence.

Muscular dystrophy is not a contagious condition and it can only be transferred from the parent to the children. However, even if the parents do not suffer form the same condition, but if the child has the defective gene, then they are likely to be affected by it.

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