RESEARCHERS from the University of Dundee have made an important discovery that helps explain differences in diabetes outcomes across ethnicities.
The researchers, led by Professor Colin Palmer from Dundee’s School of Medicine and Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centres, have shown a genetic basis for the significant differences in age at diagnosis of type 2 diabetes for the first time.
South Asian Indians have an earlier age of onset of diabetes compared with Europeans, and this is associated with earlier mortality.
Their risk for microvascular complications, such as retinopathy and neuropathy, is also higher.
Previously, the majority of knowledge surrounding diabetes has been accumulated from studying white populations with Western European ancestry.
The research identified two genetic variants associated with age of diagnosis that are much more common in South Indian populations than in patients of European ancestry.
It is hoped that understanding these ethnicity-specific genetic factors will enable better clinical management.
Dr Sundar Srinivasan from the School of Medicine said: “Our findings highlight the ethnic differences in the genetic architecture underpinning type 2 diabetes.
“We hope that further study of the genetic variants identified in this study will one day lead to improved treatments and outcomes for patients of South Indian descent.”
The research is published in the journal ‘Diabetes Care’ and was carried out as part of the INSPIRED research project, which is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research.
INSPIRED is a £7m Dundee-led project that seeks to improve diabetes outcomes in India by working to better understand who gets diabetes, how it progresses, why some people respond better than others to treatments, and why some patients develop complications.
