A study of the urinary zinc excretion pattern of diabetic subjects, relatives of diabetics and controls has been undertaken. Diabetics show a significant hyperzincuria as compared with controls. Family studies have indicated that urinary zinc excretion could be under polygenic control. The genes involved could be important in the diabetic and prediabetic diathesis.
A review of the literature indicated some disagreement concerning plasma zinc levels in diabetes mellitus. Diabetics of both sexes with all degrees of severity of the disease have been studied and compared with controls matched for age and sex. Plasma zinc estimations were performed using a simple dilution method and atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Copper analyses were also carried out by a similar procedure. The results show that there are no significant differences in the nonfasting plasma zinc and copper levels between diabetics and controls.
A complex segregation analysis of acid phosphatase activity in 50 British families showed that the essential features of the acid phosphatase polymorphism, i.e., a major gene with three alleles, is retrieved by using the biallelic mixed model. The estimates of gene frequency and displacement obtained from segregation analysis were in agreement with those obtained from electrophoretic studies. In addition, there was evidence for a multifactorial component.
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