The 31-year-old singer had been battling Gougerot-Sjögren syndrome, an incurable autoimmune disease that attacks the exocrine glands, for almost eight years.
- Faustine Nogherotto died after a long illness at the age of 31.
- Known for having participated in the Star Academy in 2006, she later discovered that she had myalgic encephalomyelitis and then Gougerot-Sjögren syndrome.
- This incurable autoimmune disease attacks the exocrine glands, in particular the salivary glands and the lacrimal glands. It mainly affects women but rarely such young people.
Her voice that had made her famous will no longer resonate. Singer Faustine Nogherotto died on Saturday at the age of 31. She is particularly known for having participated in the sixth edition of the Star Academy in 2006. Eliminated from the castle after six weeks, the young woman then aged 17, had settled in Paris in order to work on her first album.
Unfortunately, after several examinations following mononucleosis, Faustine Nogherotto discovers that she has myalgic encephalomyelitis, a debilitating neurological disease. In 2013, she learned that she had been diagnosed with Gougerot-Sjögren syndrome, an incurable autoimmune disease. His death moved many personalities, including the mayor of Beauvais, Caroline Cayeux, who paid tribute to him on Twitter.
Faustine Nogherotto, who had made Beauvaisis shine on TF1 in the Star Academy, has left us.
She was only 31 years old. She had moved us with her voice full of sweetness, and had made us vibrate with her interpretations during her television adventure. pic.twitter.com/R5vSTD4vCa— Caroline Cayeux (@carolinecayeux) January 30, 2021
An autoimmune disease that calls for others
Gougerot-Sjögren syndrome is an autoimmune disease that attacks the exocrine glands, those that secrete fluids to distribute them outside the body. Thus, Gougerot-Sjögren syndrome attacks the salivary glands, responsible for saliva, as well as the lacrimal glands, responsible for tears. This disease affects women more often than men, and generally occurs around the age of fifty. It is usually more serious when it occurs in people between the ages of 20 and 40.
The origin of this pathology remains unknown, although genetic or environmental factors may be the cause. People with Gougerot-Sjögren syndrome have dry eyes and mouth due to dysfunction of their exocrine glands. More rarely, it is possible that the disease also attacks the lungs, which could explain chronic dry coughs.
As an autoimmune disease, it is sometimes led to develop in parallel with other pathologies, such as Raynaud’s syndrome (a blood circulation disorder, which attacks the extremities in particular) or rheumatoid arthritis ( a chronic inflammatory degenerative disease that attacks the joints to the point of deforming them). In France, Gougerot-Sjögren syndrome affects between 50 and 200,000 people.