Genomic Functions – Health News

Posts Tagged ‘Diabetes’

Low levels of blood vitamin D in adults is associated with an increased risk of developing diabetes, according to a study in Australia. After following more than 5,000 people for five years, researchers found that those with low levels of the vitamin had a 57 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those with levels within the recommended range.

“Studies like ours suggest that vitamin D levels in blood higher than recommended for maintaining bone health reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes,” said lead author Dr. Claudia Gagnon, the Western Hospital, University of Melbourne. The Institute of Medicine recommends that American adults consume 600 International Units (IU) of vitamin D daily to maintain circulating levels in the desired range.

Gagnon’s team measured their levels of vitamin D to 5,200 people without diabetes. Within five years, 200 had developed diabetes. The team repeated the measurement, found that twice as many people (six out of 100) with low levels of vitamin D had developed diabetes, unlike with normal participants (three in 100).

When considering risk factors for disease, such as age, waist circumference and family history, the risk caused by the decrease in vitamin D grew by 57 percent, compared to the risk in people with higher levels of the vitamin. “Low vitamin D levels in blood were associated with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. But the results do not prove cause and effect,” said Gagnon. For that more studies are needed, the team writes in the journal Diabetes Care. Read the rest of this entry »

People with type 2 diabetes are at high risk of developing acute pancreatitis, but that likely would diminish if they are under treatment. Acute pancreatitis is a sudden inflammation of the pancreas that causes upper abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting.

Mild cases heal without treatment, but the disease can have serious and potentially fatal complications such as heart failure, kidney or lung. Each year, 200,000 Americans make needed hospitalization.

Researchers found that among more than 97,000 adults in Taiwan, followed by eight years than those with type 2 diabetes recorded twice as many cases of acute pancreatitis (about 28 cases per 10,000 people per year) than the group without diabetes (14 cases each 10,000 people / year).

Diabetics are more likely to have multiple risk factors for acute pancreatitis, such as stones, excessive alcohol consumption, high triglycerides and have had hepatitis B or C. But after considering these factors, diabetes remained associated with a 89 percent increased risk of developing acute pancreatitis. Read the rest of this entry »

The idea that small babies at birth are at risk of adults with high cholesterol is applicable only for children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy. There is increasing evidence of the relationship between being born small for gestational age (SGA, for its acronym in English) and high cholesterol in adulthood, said Wen Xiaozhong, of Harvard Medical School in Boston.

But with his team wondered whether this risk is increased in certain groups of people born SGA or the lowest 10 percentile for gestational age. Could the size at birth to overcome the influence of environmental factors that trigger this condition coexisting, which generates heart disease and cerebrovascular accident (CVA)? For example, maternal smoking during pregnancy is a major determinant of SGA in developed countries.

The team studied the records of birth and cholesterol levels of 1,370 adults aged 39 on average. 25 percent (345) said he had high cholesterol (34 percent in adults born SGA and 24 percent of those born at normal size). But only in adults born SGA and whose mothers had smoked during pregnancy was high risk for high cholesterol.

After eliminating other factors that could cause confusion, participants who had been exposed to excessive smoke snuff in the womb (at least 20 cigarettes daily) were 2.5 times more likely to have high cholesterol. Read the rest of this entry »

Still do not know the exact cause of type 1 diabetes, but international researchers have found a link between the disorder of blood glucose and a network of genes of the immune system.

Through an association study of the entire genome, the researchers found that a certain group of genes that reacts in response to viral infection was present in both rats and humans, and that these same genes were also associated with susceptibility to diabetes type 1.

“The diseases arising as a result of many genetic and environmental factors through networks of genes that cause tissue damage,” said Dr. Stuart Cook, author of the study, group director of molecular and cellular cardiology Science Center Clinics Medical Research Council and professor of clinical cardiology and molecular Imperial College London.

“We use a method to identify the central command of major control points of a network of genes of inflammation. This led us to discover hundreds of new genes that may cause diabetes, and a major control gene that controls the entire network” said Cook.
He added that one gene belongs to a class of genes that might be a good target for drug therapy in the future. Read the rest of this entry »