Genetics & Type 2 Diabetes

Several days ago I noted the first genetic intervention for Type 1 Diabetes. Today scientists from the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Lund University and Novartis today announced the discovery of three unsuspected regions of human DNA that contain clear genetic risk factors for type 2 diabetes, and another that is associated with elevated blood triglycerides. While these findings have not reached the stage of clinical testing they suggest that with more genetic research there may be points of intervention to prevent or ameliorate diabetes, heart disease and lipid levels which lead to much of today's chronic diseases. The scientists worked together with two other groups that performed similar genomic analyses of type 2 diabetes: the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium/U.K. Type 2 Diabetes Genetics Consortium (WTCCC/UKT2D), led by Mark McCarthy and Peter Donnelly of Oxford University and Andrew Hattersley of Peninsula Medical School; and the Finland-United States Investigation of NIDDM Genetics (FUSION) led by Francis Collins of the National Human Genome Research Institute and Michael Boehnke of the University of Michigan.