The incidence of diabetes mellitus in the offspring of diabetic couples investigation based on the oral glucose tolerance test

Abstract

Summary. 88 of 137 offspring of 22 adult onset diabetic couples were subjected to an oral glucose tolerance test (G.T.T.); 35 were found to have a diabetic G.T.T. As 8 were already known as diabetics, 43 of 96 offspring (45Yo) were found to have diabetes mellitus. Neither the data pertaining to the parents, such as family history, treatment of diabetes or obstetric history, nor the data pertaining to the offspring, such as sex, age, parity or course of pregnancy, could be related to the incidence of diabetes in the offspring. It was noted however, that overweight female, but not male, offspring are more likely to develop diabetes than those who are not overweight (p < 0.05).

High prevalence of Type 2 (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes among the offspring of conjugal Type 2 diabetic parents in India

“…Moreover, we found that 34% of our patients with impaired glucose tolerance developed diabetes over a period of 5 years (unpublished observation). While the prevalence rate in this study is 62%, the prevalence in the three largest series in Europeans were 23% [4], 42% [5] and 45% [13] after a single oral glucose tolerance test. No doubt these latter figures might be lower if the National Diabetes Data Group criteria were used.…”

“…In this study we chose to combine the numbers of the diabetic patients and those with impaired glucose tolerance for a number of reasons. Firstly, most earlier studies used the Fajans and Conn criteria in which a 2-h value over 6.6 mmol/1 was sufflcent to diagnose diabetes [4,5,13]. In the National Diabetes Data Group criteria, even for the diagnosis of impaired glucose tolerance, the 2-h value must be more than 7.8 mmol/l.…”

Skin microvascular vasodilatory capacity in offspring of two parents with Type 2 diabetes

“…Subtle vasodilatory impairment was noted in an insulin‐resistant subgroup of the offspring [17]. In contrast to the two studies above, all of the offspring examined in the present study had two parents with Type 2 DM, a cohort which is at a much higher risk of developing the same condition [6–8]. Subjects studied had minimal evidence of insulin resistance compared with their age‐matched control group.…”

“…The abnormalities in the skin microcirculation which precede Type 2 DM could still be explicable in terms of dysglycaemia. To assess whether genetic predisposition to diabetes might itself be associated with impairment of microvascular function, we studied normoglycaemic offspring all of whom had two parents with Type 2 DM, and thus an extremely high life‐time risk of developing diabetes [6–8] and compared their responses with a control population with no family history of the condition.…”

Juvenile diabetes mellitus: possibility of prevention.

“…In another paper Kahn et al (1969) estimated from such tests that 40% of those born to conjugal diabetics had evidence of chemical diabetes. Radder and Terpstra (1975) studied the children of patients with conjugal MOD, mean age at diagnosis 61 years. About 45% of these children were chemically diabetic on oral glucose tolerance tests but fewer than one child in 4 had previously been diagnosed.…”