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Muscular dystrophy can appear in infancy up to middle age or later, and its form and severity are determined in part by the age at which it occurs. Some types of muscular dystrophy affect only males; some people with MD enjoy a normal life span with mild symptoms that progress very slowly; others experience swift and severe muscle weakness and wasting, dying in their late teens to early 20s.
Darius Weems
Around 12% of males die from Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy
It effects only males. Women are carriers
Genetic counseling is advised when there is a family history of muscular dystrophy. Women may have no symptoms but still carry the gene for the disorder. Duchenne muscular dystrophy can be detected with about 95% accuracy by genetic studies performed during pregnancy. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001190.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscular_dystrophy
Mixed Muscular Dystrophy is a rapid progression form of Muscular Dystrophy. This normally occurs to people between the ages of 30 and 50 and death normally occurs within 5 years.
Prevalence of MD is higher in males. In the United States, Duchenne and Becker MD occur in approximately one in 3,300 boys. Overall incidence of MD is about 63 per one million people.
1 in 3500 males
Muscular dystrophy is a type of genetic disorder. The disorder weakens the muscles until they can no longer move. People with this disorder do not produce a protein needed for healthy muscles.
1 in every 3,500 to 5,000 people in the u.s. get diagnosed
This is exactly how DMD is transmitted: the defect resides on the X chromosome. Women have 2 X chromosomes, so even if one of the X chromosomes has the DMD trait, the other X chromsome does not and they never get DMD. This is why boys exclusively get Duchenne - they have only one X chromosome. So if a woman carries the Duchenne trait, there is a 50% chance that she will pass DMD to her male offspring. Similarly, there's a 50% chance that her daughters will become carriers like her.
MD is a genetic disorder that destroys muscles that help the body move.