Parental diabetes triples your own risk

04/07/2014

If the parents suffer from type 2 diabetes, the children are also significantly more susceptible to the disease, according to the latest release from the German Institute for Nutritional Research (DIfE), citing the results of the Potsdam EPIC study (EPIC: European Prospective Investigation in Cancer and Nutrition) with more than 27,000 study participants. Together with scientists from the German Diabetes Center in Düsseldorf and the Helmholtz Zentrum München, the research team headed by Matthias Schulze and Kristin Mühlenbruch from the German Institute for Nutrition Research reviewed the data from the large population long-term study for possible intergenerational relationships with type 2 diabetes risk.

The evaluation showed that „a family history, the risk of diabetes relatively strong“ influenced, reports the DIfE. That's the way people have, „whose mother or father suffers from type 2 diabetes, alone thereby an approximately 1.7-fold increased risk of diabetes compared to persons with comparable characteristics, but without a family history.“ Even more drastic is the risk increase if both parents are ill. Here is „even an almost three times higher risk“ (2.9-fold). This increase in risk is comparable to that resulting from aging by about 20 years. So would have „a forty-year-old person whose parents both have type 2 diabetes is about as at risk as a sixty-year-old person whose mother and father do not have the disease“, reports the DIfE. The current study was published in the specialist magazine „Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice“.

Healthy lifestyle lowers the risk of diabetes
Although it has been shown in the data analysis that a parental diabetes disease also leads to an increased risk of disease in children, but „even if you have an increased risk of diabetes due to a family history, this does not mean that you inevitably have to get diabetes“, emphasized study author Kristin Mühlenbruch. The head of the Department of Molecular Epidemiology at DIfE, Matthias Schulze, added that here „A healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet can (or does) contribute significantly to delaying or even preventing the onset of the disease.“ Anyone who knows the personal risk, can accordingly prevent accordingly. According to the DIfE can be some well-known factors such as „Waist circumference, nutrition, physical activity, smoking behavior and alcohol consumption“ to influence the risk of disease. Other risk factors „on the other hand, age, body size and genetic predisposition can not be influenced“, so the DIfE on.

Test for the assessment of the personal disease risk
When assessing personal diabetes risk, the DIfE's diabetes risk test can help. This is based, according to the Institute „Based on data from the EPIC study in Potsdam, it is possible to determine the individual diabetes risk quickly and easily with the help of simple data on different lifestyle factors and body measurements.“ However, the test is currently taking into account „not yet the family bias since the data basis for the weighting of this risk factor was not sufficient.“ With the help of the newly determined study results, the test should be further improved in the future in order to optimize the risk prediction. (Fp)