With rising obesity levels, it can sometimes be difficult for doctors to distinguish type 1 diabetes, which requires insulin injections, and type 2 diabetes, which can be controlled through diet and weight loss in young adults.
A team of researchers at Exeter have developed a genetic risk score which can help in identifying patients between the ages of 20 and 40 who will require insulin treatment of their diabetes.
“This will be an important addition to correctly classifying individuals with diabetes and will improve the number of people who get the right treatment when they are first diagnosed, especially people who sit in the overlap between type 1 and type 2 diagnosis,” said Dr Richard Oram, National Institute for Health Research Clinical Lecturer and specialist in Diabetes and Nephrology at the University of Exeter Medical School.
Researchers say the good news about the test is that it may save many people with type 2 diabetes from mistakenly being put on insulin, because once you go on insulin, there is no going back. Results from the test will also keep people with type 1 diabetes from being put on pills, avoiding sometimes serious consequences.
The test measures 30 variances in DNA, combining all the risks associated with them into one score. If someone’s score is high, they likely have type 1 diabetes, and conversely, if their score is low, they have type 2 diabetes. It is believed the genetic risk score test is an additional diagnostic tool, and the researchers suggest using it along with an existing test that measures antibodies.
The test will give patients a better understanding of their condition. “Having this information about their diabetes and about their genetic risk will make a big difference to the way people feel about their care. If you speak to people with diabetes they often want to know why they have developed the disease and whether some of their risk for the disease is genetic,” Dr Oram says.
The Exeter research team is now working to develop a test that can be done in any clinical laboratory quickly and inexpensively. Dr Mike Weedon, of the University of Exeter Medical School, said: “We think this is a really good example of taking results from large-scale genetic studies and translating them into clinical practice and improved patient care.”
The study, “A Type 1 Diabetes Genetic Risk Score Can Aid Discrimination Between Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes in Young Adults,” was published in the journal Diabetes Care on November 17, 2015.
