Researchers have identified four new genes associated with type 2 diabetes and located six independent genetic variants associated with diabetes in parts of the chromosome that were already known.

Based on findings from an analysis of 50,000 gene variants in 2,000 genes related to cardiac function and metabolism, appear in the Feb. 9 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.


The results provide information on the genetic risk of type 2 diabetes in various ethnic groups and may help find new treatments, according to a news release from the magazine.

A variety of environmental and genetic factors associated with type 2 diabetes.

“Overall, the known genetic variants [of diabetes type 2] explain only about ten percent of genetic variation, indicating that additional genetic factors may contribute to disease risk,” he said in the press release co-author of the study, Dr. Brendan Keating, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“In addition, previous studies have relied almost exclusively in individuals of European ancestry, and genetic contributors [to diabetes type 2] are less well understood in non-European populations,” he added. “An important first step toward understanding genetic risk in populations is to establish whether genes [associated with diabetes] known overlap are specific ethnic groups or different populations.”

Keating and an international team of colleagues analyzed 39 studies of multiple ethnicities on type 2 diabetes involving more than 17,000 people with diabetes and 70,000 people who did not have the disease.

“As a result of our large-scale genetic analysis, we discovered genetic variants and unknown ethnic European and confirmed that, overall, the genetic risk factors known to influence [on type 2 diabetes] in multi-ethnic populations, which include African Americans, Hispanic and Asian, “he said in the press release main co-author Richa Saxena, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine, Harvard University.

Saxena said that identifying new genes associated with type 2 diabetes in different ethnic groups could eventually guide the strategies for developing treatments.