The Relation between Catecholamine and Vitiligo

The catecholamine is one kind of psychoactive substances contain catechol and amidogen, the catecholamine including norepinephrine, epinephrine and dopamine.

The main physiology of the catecholamine is to increase the adaptive ability of the humane body at any situation. It will by these ways such as:

1) Increase the sensitivity of the central nervous system to the peripheral reaction, body in an alert and awake situation.

2) Selective increase the blood supply to the heart, lung, and brain skeletal muscle, etc vital organs, enhance the heart output and the pulmonary ventilation volume. Catecholamine can accelerate the conduction between the neuron and muscle and to resist fatigue.

3) Catecholamine can promote fat and protein and glycogen broken into glucose to supply energy to cells and tissue

4) Promote adrenal cortical hormone, renin and glucagon hormone secretion, against harmful stimulus and strength the responsiveness ability of the human body. So the Catecholamine is very important responsive hormone for the human body.

The changes of amount of catecholamine have a direct effect to the onset and developing of vitiligo, and based on the clinical observation, some of the vitiligo patients are induced vitiligo by the consistent disorder of the vegetative nerve. We also found some of the vitiligo patient’s white spot expand and the condition worse during the stressful situation. We found that metabolite of the catecholamine is higher than the normal people during the urine test for vitiligo patient. This all indicate that the onset of the vitiligo is related to the amount of the catecholamine in the blood.

Catecholamine is one of the central neurotransmitters, dopa is the predecessor of catecholamine, and dopa is oxidized as the intermediate derivative substance during the body tyrosine metabolism process. It is not only substrate that can form the melanin, but also is the substrate of the Catecholamine neurotransmitters. In another words, that the melanin and the epinephrine compete dopa in order to function well. The human body is regulated by the central nervous system, and the synthesis and metabolism of the norepinephrine and melanin is at a balance condition. Once the balance is broken, the amount of the formation catecholamines increases significantly. So the synthesis of the melanin will be inhibited. At a result losing of the pigment cause vitiligo.