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Implications for Admixture Studies of Type 2 Diabetes in Latinos

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J.C. Florez, A.L. Price, et al., Diabetologia, June 13, 2009

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: Type 2 diabetes is more prevalent in US American minority populations of African or Native American descent than it is in European Americans. However, the proportion of this epidemiological difference that can be ascribed to genetic or environmental factors is unknown. To determine whether genetic ancestry is correlated with diabetes risk in Latinos, we estimated the proportion of European ancestry in case-control samples from Mexico and Colombia in whom socioeconomic status had been carefully ascertained.

METHODS: We genotyped 67 ancestry-informative markers in 499 participants with type 2 diabetes and 197 controls from Medellín (Colombia), as well as in 163 participants with type 2 diabetes and 72 controls from central Mexico. Each participant was assigned a socioeconomic status scale via various measures.

RESULTS: Although European ancestry was associated with lower diabetes risk in Mexicans (OR [95% CI] 0.06 [0.02-0.21], p = 2.0 x 10(-5)) and Colombians (OR 0.26 [0.08-0.78], p = 0.02), adjustment for socioeconomic status eliminated the association in the Colombian sample (OR 0.64 [0.19-2.12], p = 0.46) and significantly attenuated it in the Mexican sample (OR 0.17 [0.04-0.71], p = 0.02). Adjustment for BMI did not change the results.

CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION: The proportion of non-European ancestry is associated with both type 2 diabetes and lower socioeconomic status in admixed Latino populations from North and South America. We conclude that ancestry-directed search for genetic markers associated with type 2 diabetes in Latinos may benefit from information involving social factors, as these factors have a quantitatively important effect on type 2 diabetes risk relative to ancestry effects.

[Editor’s Note: The complete article “Strong association of socioeconomic status with genetic ancestry in Latinos: implications for admixture studies of type 2 diabetes,” by J.C. Florez, A.L., et al., can be read on-line in HTML format here. Copies in PDF format and supplemental materials are available here.]

Original article

Email J.C. Florez at jcflorez@partners.org.

(Posted on June 18, 2009)

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Comments

1 — Anonymous wrote at 7:22 PM on June 18:

I couldn’t care less about the prevalence of Type II Diabetes in Latinos, regardless of the reason. This line from the article is what most interested me.

“CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION: The proportion of non-European ancestry is associated with both type 2 diabetes and lower socioeconomic status in admixed Latino populations from North and South America.”

Like the blathering sheep of George Orwell’s book “Animal Farm,” knee-jerk non-White leftists (and their dopey White leftist allies) will say this inequality in socioeconomic status is due soley to “White racism,” instead of the letting the facts speak for themselves.

2 — CDE wrote at 8:31 AM on June 19:

GREAT! We’re switching to socialized medicine at the same time we’re importing millions of illiterate diabetics. Oh, it just keeps getting better.

3 — Whiteplight wrote at 5:43 PM on June 19:

CDE wrote at 8:31 AM on June 19:
GREAT! We’re switching to socialized medicine at the same time we’re importing millions of illiterate diabetics. Oh, it just keeps getting better.

> That we are switching to Socialized medicine is false hyperbole. But it would be useful if the montrous insurance corporations that make profits from sickness would forced to convert to not-for-profit coporations whose obligation is to buy equipment, pay providers and treat the sick - not take profits. Then we might have a health care system that worked and would not be run by the government. But haven’t we all had enough proof that if we leave things to private enterprise that eventually crooks take over and we all loose? I’d rather have a system that I can at least have the right to vote in and provide oversight, not some secret clan of fat billionaires lighting their cigars with the money they took while the latest cancer victim got financially ruined on the way to their grave - dying a pauper.

The fact is that Mexicans (and other indigenous Amerind groups) don’t process sugar and starch as well as those of European ancestry and their diet changed. There must be some differences in the pancreatic response in insulin production and the general state of development of the pancreas in Amerind groups. But I have always noticed that these same groups lack what we usually call will power - that is, they are undiciplined as a cultural norm. They just like to eat what gives them pleasure with no idea that it might be bad to over indulge. That is a problem of intelligence and cognition. It is the same with Amerinds in the U.S. And it is the same where alcohol is concerned.

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