葡萄糖-6-磷酸脱氢酶缺乏症(G6PD) 简介(英文).docx

What is G6PD deficiency?Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, or G6PD deficiency for short, is the most common “inborn metabolic disorder” in the world. This means that from the time a baby is born, thre is already something wrong with how his body makes and breaks important substances. According to statistics, about 400 million people have G6PD deficiency, and it is most common in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.Babies with G6PD deficiency have very little or no enzyme called Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD). An enzyme is a kind of protein that speeds up chemical reactions in the body. The enzyme G6PD is especially important to red blood cells. If this enzyme is lacking or missing, red blood cells are easily destroyed.Another name for G6PD deficiency is favism because some people who have it, usually those living in the Meditteranean region, react very badly to fava beans.What causes G6PD deficiency?In order to understand what causes G6PD deficiency, one must first learn a bit about genes and chromosomes.Genes are like the body’s blueprints. They contain instructions on how specific parts of the body are made. For example, if the isntructions in your hair genes say your hair is black, your hair will be black. Genes are packaged into threadlike structures called chromosomes. A chromosome is very much like a beaded bracelet. The beads are the different genes that give instructions for different part of the body; the entire bracelet is the chromosome. Genes usually come and act in pairs. One member of a specific pair comes from the father, and the other member comes from the mother. The members of a pair are located on paired chromosomes.All normal human beings have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Each of the first 22 pairs contain the same number and kind of genes. The last and 23rd pair is the sex chromosomes. They are different from the first 22 pairs in that they do not have the same number and kind of genes. The sex chromosomes contain the gen