Amber L. Ross
Panola College
Professor Kevin Rutherford
How would you like to know that eating the chocolate cake on your birthday or having that big bowl of pasta could literally kill you? For the more than 220 million people worldwide who have diabetes this is the reality they live with daily. (World Health Organization 2009) This paper will inform you on the genetic and metabolic components of type 2 diabetes, as well as symptoms, diagnosis, treatments and economic factors associated with the disease.
There has long been a common misconception in the general public that Type 2 diabetes also known as adult on set diabetes has only come from being over weight. Although obesity can be a contributing factor we now have scientific information showing the genetic link beyond just lifestyle influences. It has long been known that type 2 diabetes ran in families and there for had heritability. New research indicates it is autosomal dominat and their are four novel loci associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus, SLC30A8 gene, TCF7L2 gene, a gene that encodes for an insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE), the homeodomain protein HHEX, which is essential for hepatic and pancreatic development, and a kinesin-interacting factor, KIF11. More research is needed to discover the full implicates of the KIF11 and HHEX genes. (Patis, 2007). The most interesting of the variants so far is in the TCF7L2 gene. Using high-density genotyping arrays a two stage approach began to try and identify other variants. The first round of testing was limited to those with normal BMI’s but with affected relatives, thus eliminating the obesity related risk alleles. Of the 392,935 single-nucleotide polymorphism (or SNP’s) tested 59 SNP’s showed a strong association for the disease. The second round of testing relaxed the inclusion criteria to maximize the detection of an association but still focused in on the SNP’s with the greatest risk. After both rounds of testing