Diabetes’ Genetic Underpinnings Can Vary Based On Ethnic Background

Red Orbit: May 24, 2013

Ethnic background plays a surprisingly large role in how diabetes develops on a cellular level, according to two new studies led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The researchers reanalyzed disease data to demonstrate that the physiological pathways to diabetes vary between Africa and East Asia and that those differences are reflected in part by genetic differences. The studies will be published online simultaneously May 23 in the journals PLoS Genetics and Diabetes Care.

“We have new insights into the differences in diabetes across the world, just by this new perspective applied to older studies,” said Atul Butte, MD, PhD, senior author of the studies and chief of the Division of Systems Medicine and associate professor of pediatrics and of genetics. “There’s more still to learn about diabetes than we knew.”

The early stages of type-2 diabetes, or adult-onset diabetes, can develop when the pancreas has problems creating sufficient insulin, a hormone critical for regulating blood sugar, or when the body’s cells have trouble responding to insulin, a condition called “insulin resistance.” Both problems will lead to the same result: too much sugar in a person’s blood stream, which is the main criterion for diagnosing diabetes. Diabetics develop both low insulin secretion and insulin resistance as the disease progresses.  Read more