According to experts from the universities of Cambridge and Exeter, one in 500 males may have an additional X or Y chromosome, with the majority of them being oblivious. According to the researchers in a paper published in Genetics in Medicine, this puts individuals at a higher risk of disorders including type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, and thrombosis.
They looked examined genetic data from over 200,000 males aged 40 to 70 in the UK Biobank database, which is a biomedical and anonymized database with over half a million UK individuals. They discovered 356 guys who had an additional X chromosome or a second Y chromosome.
Our biological sex is determined by our sex chromosomes. Women have two X chromosomes, whereas males have one X and one Y. Some guys, however, have XXY or XYY.
The researchers discovered 213 males with an additional X chromosome and 143 men with an extra Y chromosome in the study. Because UK Biobank members are often ‘healthier’ than the overall population, they believe that one in 500 males may have an additional X or Y chromosome.
Only a small percentage of these men had a sex chromosomal abnormality diagnosis on their medical records or by self-report: 23 percent of men with XXY had one, and only one of the 143 XYY men (0.7 percent) had one.
The scientists discovered that males with XXY had a substantially higher risk of reproductive difficulties, including a three-fold higher risk of delayed puberty and a four-fold higher risk of being childless, by combining genetic data with normal health information. These individuals also exhibited much decreased testosterone levels in their blood. The reproductive function of men with XYY appeared to be normal.
Men with either XXY or XYY had an increased chance of developing a variety of different health problems. They had three times the risk of type 2 diabetes, six times the risk of venous thrombosis, three times the risk of pulmonary embolism, and four times the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
