Gene previously shown to be involved in the development of type 2 diabetes also predisposes children to having a lower birth weight, revealed by researchers.
Pediatric researchers, from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, published the study in the journal Diabetes.
The finding sheds light on a possible genetic influence on how prenatal events may set the stage for developing diabetes in later childhood or adulthood.
“It’s a bit unusual to find a gene linked to both prenatal events and to a disease that occurs later in life,” said study leader Struan F.A. Grant, Ph.D., a researcher at the Center for Applied Genomics of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “This gene variant carries a double whammy, in raising the risk of both lower birth weight and the development of type 2 diabetes in later life.”
Grant and study co-leader Hakon Hakonarson, Ph.D., director of the Center for Applied Genomics at Children’s Hospital, investigated 20 gene locations previously reported to be assoc…