The title says it all. My father’s probably 200 lbs overweight, but I’m completely average. He developed type 2 diabetes in the past few years (he’s 50). There is no other family history of any type of diabetes. I’m 24 and not overweight - how at-risk am I?
Is type 2 diabetes something “caused” by obesity, or is it a “sleeping” condition that’s “awakened” by obesity? If so, does it require obesity, or can it be “awakened” by other factors such as stress?
Because we don’t understand all the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to the development of type II diabetes, your question is presently impossible to answer with any certainty. There’s almost certainly a genetic component contributing to the development of the disease in at least some cases, but that’s about as much as can be said with confidence.
Some things we do know: 50 years ago, type II diabetes was pretty much unheard of, so environment obviously plays a critical role. Another stark piece of evidence supporting the importance of environment is the epidemic among American Pima Indians, whose cultural distinctness has made them a model of type II diabetes epidemiology. American Pima have rates of type II diabetes many times their caucasian neighbors. In Mexico, they get it no more frequently than any other ethnic group (which, in Mexico, is not much). (It should be noted all Native Americans seem to be at a much higher risk for type II diabetes; the Pima just provide one of the clearest examples across borders). How are Mexican and American Pima different? Diet content, caloric intake, and level of exercise. That’s it.
So: Eat a low-calorie, well-balanced diet, and get all the exercise you can. It would appear that those simple measures will greatly reduce your risk of type II diabetes, even if your genetic susceptibility is high.
Great advice!
Just curious - what did your dad weigh when he was your age? I am always struck by how people I knew as lean, young adults often wind up being obese when they hit their 40’s and 50’s. If your dad was thin when he was younger, it should underscore to you the importance of Loopydude’s sage advice.
And, to give you a statistical answer to your question (which therefore blurs and omits lots of information relevant to you specifically), the answer I always gave was that having one first degree relative (eg. father) with diabetes gives a person about a 25% of chance of developing diabetes themselves.
He was always heavier - even as a young teenager, he was overweight, and has been legally “obese” for all of his adult life. It’s blatantly obvious that it’s a lifestyle thing for him (probably deeply rooted issues about eating, and near-constant eating and overeating) rather than genetics - everyone else in the family is very thin.
I saw a talk Friday from a professor at NYU (David Roth) here in Memphis on Type II Diabetes. From what I can recall he said that all efforts so far have failed to link Type II Diabetes to a specific gene, but that there are probably 4 different genes responsible for the disease. He said that it is likely these 4 genes are useful in improving our immune system in some way, but that when they or their mutants exist in some combination in certain people it leads to disease. So using this I would say genetically speaking you are at risk, but it is not necessarily easy to determine what your risk is.