While genetic screening did help identify the people at high risk of developing the metabolic disorder, the traditional risk factors, such as obesity, family history, glucose intolerance, were just as useful, the studies found.
In two separate studies researchers screened 25 genetic variants, in all. Individually, each variant was associated with an increased risk for type 2 diabetesdefine. The higher the number of variants one inherited, greater were the chances for developing the disease.
For the first study, researchers at the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, zeroed in on over 2,300 former participants of the Framingham Heart Study.
The researchers looked for 18 genetic variants in blood samples typically associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes. Individually, each variant conferred a 5-37 percent increased risk of developing the disease. In the 28-year-follow-up, 255 participants developed type 2 diabetes.
Researchers also calculated the individual’s diabetes risk using the traditional methods such as body mass index
define for obesity, glucose tolerance levels through blood tests, age and family history, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Comparisons between the genetic score and traditional scores found that the genotype score was only 4 percent better in predicting the risk of diabetes.
In the second study researchers from Lund University in Malmo, Sweden, looked into16 gene variants associated with type 2 diabetes. Close to 19,000 individuals, 16,061 Swedish and 2,770 Finnish were enrolled for the 23-year-long study. Follow-up analysis revealed total diagnoses of 2,201 cases.
Following a similar study mark-up, genetic screening results only slightly outweighed the conventional methods of predicting the risk of diabetes.
Dr. James Meigs, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston and the lead author of the first study believes that the genetic screening for type 2 diabetes would be helpful only if the people actually change their lifestyle and diet based on their genetic risk.
"If we could show that people at high risk for diabetes are more motivated to lose weight, eat healthier, and be more physically active you could make a case that screening would be very valuable," Meigs asserts.
The collective results of the two studies feature in today’s issue of the journal ‘New England Journal of Medicine’.
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