What is Sjogren’s Syndrome, and Who are more prone to it?

 Sjögren's (enunciated as SHOW-grins) syndrome is a chronic long-term autoimmune disorder. In this disorder, a patient’s immune system of the body, i.e., the white blood cells attacks glands which secrete fluid, such as saliva and tear glands. This results in dry mouth and eyes owing to the body’s lack of saliva and tears production. Moreover, the effects of this syndrome can be extensive as sometimes the gland that is responsible for keeping the vagina moist also gets affected by getting inflamed and thereby leading in vaginal dryness. In few rare cases of Sjögren's syndrome, patients might experience stiffness and pain in the joints along with aching muscles. According to an analysis on Sjogren’ssyndrome market, this disorder results in several complications such as staphylococcal, streptococcal, and pneumococcal infections of parotid glands. Generally, this disorder is more often than not accompanied by other immune system disorders, for instance, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Health care providers categorize Sjögren's syndrome as either primary or secondary:

·         Primary Sjögren's syndrome – this condition not acquire as a result of any other condition, meaning it is not an ‘end result’ of another condition.

·         Secondary Sjögren's syndrome – this condition occurs beside another condition, such as previously mentioned rheumatoid arthritis or lupus.

What causes Sjögren's syndrome?

As we already known, that it is an autoimmune disorder; it means that rather than protecting the body from illness or infection, the immune system abnormally responds and starts attacking the cells and tissues which are healthy. Patients having this disorder are said to have abnormal proteins in their blood. The system attacks fluid secretion glands and the reasons for this still remains unknown, but researchers state that the disorder it actuated by a combination of certain factors such as genetic, environmental and potentially even hormonal. It has been experienced that a few people are thought to be more vulnerable to the syndrome by birth.

Risk factors of Sjögren's syndrome

Even though any individual can acquire Sjögren's syndrome, it usually happened to people who possess one or more risk factors. These include:

·         Sex – it has been found that women are more prone to have this syndrome

·         Age – this syndrome is generally diagnosed with people older than 40 years of age

·         Rheumatic disease – as read previously, more often than not people having rheumatic diseases such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, tend to get Sjögren's syndrome