Will I pass on my lipedema to my children?

I have lipedema: Will I pass my lipedema on to my children?

The question many patients ask themselves.

Lipedema is a disease that almost exclusively affects women, and its impact can be particularly severe, both physically and mentally. So it’s only natural that its diagnosis should raise major concerns for the patient concerned, not least about its hereditary nature.

As a reminder, before I talk about passing on my lipedema:

Lipedema is a chronic, degenerative affliction. Although there is no established scientific consensus on the percentage of the population affected, it is generally accepted that it affects 10% of the population. It is also under-diagnosed and often confused with obesity.

Is it possible to pass it on to your children?

The question is more complicated than it first appears. To answer it, we must first look at the causes of the disease, which are also still the subject of lively debate within the scientific community. It is generally accepted that the origin is multifactorial, the result of a combination of phenomena rather than a single cause. Hormonal factors seem to play an important part, since lipedema is most often triggered at puberty, but also sometimes during pregnancy or with menopause.

Moreover, as we have seen, it only affects women, which tends to reinforce the importance of the hormonal factor. Lymphatic or venous disorders may also favour the development of the disease. In addition to these factors, scientists also agree on the ” polygenic susceptibility ” hypothesis »: in other words, several genes come together to form a genetic predisposition to the development of lipedema.

Passing on my lipedema: Genetic predisposition

So, if genes are involved, there’s a chance that, if you have lipedema, you’ll pass it on to your daughters and granddaughters. However, studies on this hereditary trait vary widely, with orders of familial predisposition ranging from 16% to 64%. So don’t panic: transmission is not systematic, and it’s entirely possible that your children will never develop the disease. Studies are still in progress on this subject, which should enable us to learn more, particularly about the hereditary factor, in the years to come.

The final word on this article “Will I pass on my lipedema to my children?”

Dans tous les cas, n’oubliez pas non plus que le lipœdème est de mieux en mieux diagnostiqué, et que de nombreux traitements efficaces sont possibles. Pour rappel, outre les bandes de compression et les pressothérapies, l’option chirurgicale est indiquée dans la grande majorité des cas. Comme nous l’avons vu dans un autre article, il n’y a pas de limite d’âge pour se faire opérer : si vos filles développent du lipœdème, elles pourront donc être efficacement soignées.