Researchers report new figures on 2 muscular dystrophy disorders

(University of Iowa) Public health researchers report the freqency of two muscle-weakness disorders that strike mostly boys: Duchenne muscular dystrophy and Becker muscular dystrophy. The team found that about 1 in 5,000 boys in the United States, between 5 and 9 years old, have the inherited disorders. They also find that the diseases appear to affect Hispanic boys more often than white or African-American boys, for unknown reasons. Results appear in the journal Pediatrics.