More Evidence Diabetes
Can Run in the Family
Excerpt By Alison McCook, Reuters Health

Some children born to mothers with type 1 diabetes may be predisposed to developing the far more common type 2 diabetes as adults, according to a report released Thursday.

In a small study, researchers discovered that adult children of mothers who had type 1 diabetes -- which normally strikes in childhood -- were more likely to develop a condition that often precedes type 2 diabetes, the form of the disease that largely affects adults.

In contrast, children born to fathers with type 1 diabetes and non-diabetic mothers showed no increased risk of the conditions linked to the type 2 form.

These findings suggest that "exposure to a diabetic environment in utero" could cause changes in the body that predispose a child to develop type 2 diabetes as an adult, write Dr. Jean-Francois Gautier of Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris and colleagues.

Just how the womb of a diabetic mother might influence the child's future diabetes risk is unclear, Gautier told Reuters Health.

He speculated that diabetic mothers' high blood sugar levels somehow affect the development of the fetus's pancreas, an organ involved in diabetes.

Gautier said that adult children of type 1 diabetic mothers "need to stay fit and lean" in order to avoid two important risk factors for type 2 diabetes -- obesity and inactivity.

Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body can no longer properly use insulin, a hormone that, after food is digested, moves glucose from the blood and into body cells to be used as energy.

In type1 diabetes, the immune system launches a misguided attack against pancreatic cells called beta cells, which produce insulin. People with this type of diabetes must take daily insulin injections to survive.

During the study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, Gautier and his colleagues measured whether participants showed signs of a condition known as impaired glucose tolerance, a condition marked by elevated blood sugar levels that often precedes type 2 diabetes.

Among 15 non-diabetic adult children of mothers with type 1 diabetes, five had impaired glucose tolerance. In contrast, none of the 16 non-diabetic adult children born to fathers with type 1 diabetes showed signs of the condition.

Both groups of adult children carried roughly the same percentage of body fat, according to the report.

In an interview with Reuters Health, Dr. Andrew S. Greenberg of Tufts University in Boston, who co-wrote an accompanying editorial, said that the study includes only a small number of people, and bigger studies are needed to replicate these results.

Greenberg and his colleagues point out that most children of diabetic mothers did not develop impaired glucose tolerance -- possibly on account of other genetic factors that protected them from the condition.

Mothers who have their diabetes under better control -- perhaps through treatment, diet and exercise -- might also be less likely to predispose their children to the condition, Greenberg said.

"These data support the importance of the intrauterine environment, a period in which a human being is experiencing the most dramatic changes that will occur during his or her entire lifetime, as a determinant of adult health," the editorialists write.

Greenberg added that preparing a diabetic's womb for pregnancy might involve getting her blood sugar under control as much as possible before she has even conceived, in case the pregnancy is unexpected.

SOURCE: The Lancet 2003;361:1861-1865.

Reference Source 89

For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick Prevention Resources".