Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
close window
Housecall Archives
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
close window
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Risk factors
By Mayo Clinic staffAlthough the precise cause of Dupuytren's contracture hasn't been identified, a number of factors are believed to increase your risk of the disease, including:
- Family history. A propensity to develop Dupuytren's contracture may be passed on through families, though researchers haven't identified a gene mutation that might identify who's at risk.
- Tobacco and alcohol use. Smoking is associated with an increased risk of Dupuytren's contracture, perhaps because of microscopic changes within blood vessels caused by smoking. Alcohol intake also is associated with Dupuytren's, although not everyone with Dupuytren's abuses alcohol.
- Diabetes. People with type 1 diabetes or type 2 diabetes have an increased risk of tender tissue lumps on the palms of the hands, but the condition is generally mild and progresses very slowly. Fingers usually don't become contracted.
