Familial history of type 2 diabetes in patients from Southern Brazil and its influence on the clinical characteristics of this disease

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the presence of maternal and paternal history of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) in relatives of 644 type 2 diabetic patients from Southern Brazil, and also to evaluate its influence on the clinical characteristics of this disease. Patients and Methods: Familial history of type 2 DM was investigated by a questionnaire. The maternal and paternal history was investigated over two generations. Complete data sets on familial history were obtained from 396 patients. Results: In general, 76.6% of the patients reported at least one first-degree affected relative. Besides, 31.6% of the patients reported a maternal history of type 2 DM and 12.6% reported a paternal history. Patients with maternal and/or paternal history presented a lower age at type 2 DM diagnosis when compared to patients without familial history. In addition, patients with only paternal history presented a higher frequency of hypertension than patients with no familial history. Conclusions: This study suggests that there is a significant maternal effect in the transmission of type 2 DM in Southern Brazil, and that most of the clinical characteristics of this disease do not differ between patients with or without familial history of type 2 DM. Some studies have shown that the adult offspring of diabetic parents are more obese than those of non-diabetic parents and display higher fasting plasma levels of glucose, insulin, triglycerides, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol (13). Similarly, in Pima Indians, maternal DM is associated with higher blood pressure (BP) in the offspring (14). Recently, a study reported that the offspring of diabetic mothers displayed higher body mass index (BMI) and triglycerides when compared to the offspring of diabetic fathers (15). However, there are still few studies regarding the influence of familial history on the clinical characteristics of type 2 DM, in particular concerning the role of the paternal history on these characteristics.The aims of this study were to compare the prevalence of maternal and paternal history of type 2 DM in patients from Southern Brazil with type 2 DM, and to evaluate the roles of familial histories of DM on the clinical and laboratory characteristics of this disease. PATIENTS AND METHODSThe study group consisted of 644 unrelated type 2 diabetic patients (514 Caucasian-and 130 AfricanBrazilians) participating in a multicenter study in the Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul. Diagnosis of type 2 DM was based on the World Health Organization criteria (16). Patients over 30 years old and who had been treated with oral glucose lowering agents for over two years with no history of ketoacidosis were included in the study. Ethnic definition was based on self-report. The Caucasian-Brazilians were descendents from Europeans, mainly from Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany, whereas the African-Brazilians were descendents from people brought to Brazil, between the 17 th and 18 th centuries, mainly from the west coast of Africa, Angola and Mozambique. Written informed con...

Maternal and Paternal Transmission of Diabetes: Influence of Nutritional Factors

“…For example, absence of excess of maternal transmission was observed in South Indian [10] as well as in Korean population with T2DM [11], supported later by a study on Western Indian population [12]. It was suggested that parental T2DM was an independent risk factor for offspring of T2DM in Korean population Kim et al On the other hand, in recent years presence of excess maternal transmission of T2DM has been documented in Greek diabetics [13], supporting previous studies in Brazil [14], and Norway [15]. A very recent finding by Abbasi et al on population of Netherland showed that both maternal and paternal diabetes seem to be associated with increased risk of T2DM, independently of diet, lifestyle and obesity [16].…”

“…McCarthy et al in contrast did not find any difference of transmission of diabetes in their population [27], but in several studies maternal transmission was found in different populations [13,14,[28][29][30].…”

The prevalence of chronic diabetic complications and metabolic syndrome is not associated with maternal type 2 diabetes

“…Maternal history of type 2 DM has been reported to be more frequent than paternal history by some investigators (1-7) and we have previously reported a maternal effect in DM transmission in a subset of 644 patients (8). However, other studies have not observed this association (9,10).…”

Clinical study of the oral manifestations and related factors in type 2 diabetics patients

“…Smoking has been related to vascular complications in diabetic and hypertensive patients; encouraging cessation of smoking is one of the measures for these groups, although the consequences of smoking are similar to those in the general population. 29 Studies on salivary flow have shown conflicting results because of the different methods that have been used -measurements of saliva at rest, stimulated salivary flow, self-reported decreased salivary flow in diabetics and non-diabetics. We found more diabetic patients with decreased salivary flow compared to non-diabetic patients.…”