Half a century before the first symptoms

The tendency to diabetes can be determined by blood at the age of 8 years

Svetlana Maslova, Hi-tech+

Scientists have found that predisposition to type 2 diabetes mellitus can be assessed decades before diagnosis by certain metabolic features in childhood. The disease is well corrected by diet and lifestyle, so an early understanding of the risks can prevent the development of the disease altogether.

More than 4,000 people took part in the study by scientists from the University of Bristol, which is described in the press release Signs of being prone to adult diabetes are already visible at age 8 years old. Their blood samples were evaluated at the ages of 8, 16, 18 and 25 to track changes in indicators that could be informative for type 2 diabetes. In particular, scientists assessed the genetic risks of volunteers.

In total, the scientists analyzed 162 genetic variants and 229 metabolic traits. They combined genetic information with an approach called metabolomics, which is responsible for the changes of many metabolites in the blood. As a result, patterns were identified that determine the propensity to diabetes in early childhood.

"We knew that diabetes does not develop overnight, but we did not imagine how the first signs of the disease can manifest so early in life," commented study co–author Joshua Bell.

Thus, the indicators of high-density lipoproteins were reduced at the age of 8 years, and, for example, low-density lipoproteins were increased. In other words, these are indicators of "good" and "bad" cholesterol, respectively.

At the age of 16 and 18, inflammatory markers and the level of certain amino acids were increased. Over time, these changes have evolved, the authors explained.

"We are talking about addiction, not about the clinical manifestation of the disease itself. Our findings do not mean that children and adolescents at this age already have diabetes. However, they show that children may have a more likely predisposition to its development in the future," Bell stressed.

Article by Bell et al. Early Metabolic Features of Genetic Liability to Type 2 Diabetes: Cohort Study With Repeated Metabolomics Across Early Life published in the journal Diabetes Care – VM.

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