Low birth weight linked with diabetes

Wed, 07 Apr 2010
Although high birth weight has long been linked with a higher risk of developing diabetes, having a low birth rate has now also been shown to increase diabetes risk . The findings were published in the journal Nature Genetics, and is the first to explain why small babies face greater diabetes risk later in life.

Mark McCarthy of the diabetes research group, University of Oxford, said that low birth weight also influence infant survival. He reportedly said: "It's become clear in the last 10 to 20 years that there's a rather strange connection between birth weight and subsequent risk of diabetes and heart disease, for example. So that babies that are born smaller, in general, have higher rates of those diseases later in life."

McCarthy reportedly commented: "We actually found some strong genetic effects and were able to identify two specific genetic regions that were quite strongly associated with birth weight. I think these are all factors that go into the mix. These are not genetic effects that will say irrespective of everything else that you will end up with a small baby."

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