gene testing

MCMLXXIII

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Messages
1,823
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Diabetes gene?
Phoenix, where are you wen we need you?:)
 

misslotty1

Active Member
Messages
33
I spoke to my Dr on Thursday about this. Myself and my brother are t1, my question was could he test my 3 boys for the 'abnormal gene'. Dr said''many people may carry the abnormal gene, nobody can tell when or if it Will make the person t1.'' his way of looking at it was if i knew they carried the gene, i would then spend all my time worrying.

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Yorksman

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,445
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Many people get the impression that there is a single gene responsible for this or that and it is largely due to oversimplification by the media. Sometimes, the researchers oversimplify things when they brief the media. They express complex scenarios in 'media friendly terms'.

There are 18 separate regions in the genome which influence type 1 diabetes alone. These are labelled IDDM1 to IDDM18. Each of these regions may contain several genes which affect susceptibility to type 1 diabetes. IDDM1 is the most widely studied region. There are still many unknowns.

The IDDM1 region contains the HLA genes that encode the immune response system. When the immune cells find an inappropriate chain, they begin attacking. Without HLA genes, immune cells would not find the chains of viruses, bacteria, or tumor cells. On the other hand, inheriting certain versions (alleles) of the HLA genes increases the probability that immune cells will attack the body's healthy cells. This is how IDDM1 contributes to the immune attack of the beta cells and thus type 1 diabetes.

The HLA region is a cluster of genes on chromosome 6. The genes encode glycoproteins that are found on the surfaces of most cells and help the immune system to distinguish between self (its own cells, e.g., beta cells of the pancreas) and non-self (e.g., bacteria, viruses).

Autoimmune disease results when the immune system launches an attack against the body's tissues. The risk of developing autoimmune disease is sometimes related to the alleles of HLA genes in the body. Type 1 diabetes is unique among these diseases in that HLA alleles may increase the risk of diabetes, have no effect, or even be protective.

How an individual is affected is highly dependent on what the coding of the other regions is and research is by no means complete. All we actually know is that certain regions affect things in certain ways, but we do not have a complete picture. Even something as simple as blue eyes / brown eyes is more complex than the simplified explanation one sees on the web. By the time we attempt to explain grey/green or hazel eyes, the picture is even less clear.

One thing to note about genetic faults. They all have both good and bad sides to them. Take for example sickle cell anaemia. Normally seen as a bad thing in the west, it does offer some protection to malaria and is at its highest levels in africa. Or, take factor 5 leiden mutation. FVL is a blood clotting disorder where there is an increased risk in clots forming with all the thrombotic risks that entails. This is a genetic mutation which appears to have developed in one human at sometime in the past who was either in europe or who entered europe from the near east. Today some populations have frequencies of 16% of carriers of at least one copy of this mutation, you need two copies for the disease to be expressed. How can such a potentially fatal disease that occured in one person be so successful that it is now present in many people in various parts of europe? The answer is that the ability to more easily clot blood is useful for healing wounds and in childbirth. It grew in numbers and got passed around whilst we lived in a different world and ate different foods.
 
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cknmonster said:
Anyone been offered testing to see if your a carrier of the diabetes gene? Have you had any family members tested?

I've never heard of the diabetes gene. Sometimes a person is just unlucky to get diabetes ( I'm type 1). There is only 13 months between me and my sister, I'm the older but slightly smaller in build and she used to eat 'sugar sandwiches' after school, which used to make me gringe, smoke etc, and also, I know of adult twins, male and female and the girl became type 1 when she was a teenager, sometimes science /genes etc just goes out the window and what will be will be, but it is an interesting subject and I would like to know more about it. Type 1 does run in my family, on my mothers side :(

All the best RRB