IFLSCIENCE.COM – Have you ever noticed a strange crease or fold in your earlobes or those of people you know?
It looks like a diagonal line that extends backwards and diagonally across the earlobe from the tragus (the fleshy bump in front of your ears’ opening) to its edge.
This fold, known as Frank’s sign, has a disarmingly quaint sounding name given that some believe it could indicate coronary artery disease.
Frank’s sign was first reported by Dr Sanders T. Frank in 1973, an American pulmonologist, who noticed this peculiar crease was present in 20 patients with angina – a condition that causes chest pain and discomfort due to reduced blood flow to the heart.
According to Dr Frank, this type of earlobe fold was a physical sign that could indicate the presence of coronary artery disease.
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The cause of this sign is still unclear. In the 1980s, it was reported that Frank’s sign was caused by insufficient arterial supply in the earlobe.
However, in the 1990s, other researchers believed the sign was associated with macrophage activity – a type of white blood cell – atherosclerosis, ageing, and the overall preservation of earlobe collagen.
There have also been genetic studies that suggest the fold is related to HLA-B27 and C3-F genes and chromosome 11, while other work has indicated that Frank’s Sign could be associated with shortening telomeres – a process involved in aging – in peripheral white blood cells.
There have also been those who hypothesize that the Sign is caused by the loss of elastic fibres in the skin, due to oxidative stress (harmful molecules in the body), and thickening of small blood vessels in the earlobe …