Diabetes Health Research Report:Genetic Variants Linked to Heterogeneity of Type 1 Diabetes

A new study has found that genetic variants including transcription factor 7 like 2 (TCF7L2) contribute to the phenotypic heterogeneity of type 1 diabetes. Researchers from Houston’s Texas Children’s Hospital investigated the relationship between TCF7L2 and metabolic characteristics at the time of type 1 diabetes diagnosis. They used 810 patients who had recently been diagnosed with autoimmune type 1 diabetes.

The study found that a major factor for expressing single autoantibiody at diagnosis was the rs4506565 variant. This association was found significant in participants over the age of 12. From this information, researchers could deduce that TCF7L2 variant carriers have a milder metabolic phenotype at the time of type 1 diabetes diagnosis.

These findings were published in Diabetes Care on October 17, 2017.