Clarkson Integrator

Issue date: 4/21/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Courtesy Wikimedia Commons The photo above demonstrates a common method of putting insulin into the system of a person afflicted by diabetes. Millions of people must inject themselves each day.

When doctors told twenty-eight year-old Nakia East that her one year-old's sudden weight loss and unusual thirst were caused by diabetes, she found herself thrust into a whole new level of parenting.

"They told me everything was going to change," said East. Since then, she has learned to inject her son, Yanaan, with insulin four times every day. She tracks every ounce of food he eats and measures his blood sugar after each meal. And then there are the terrifying moments when the readings plunge far too low.

"They told me he's going to have this his whole life," she said recently, resigned to her son's fate.

But the scientific community is not so resigned. At a recent Philadelphia meeting on the genetics of diabetes, a flurry of discoveries offered new leads in the search for better treatments and strategies to prevent the disease in the first place.

Some of the newly discovered diabetes-associated genes some involved in fighting infection, others in Vitamin D metabolism could help scientists understand how genes and environment conspire to cause diabetes.

While the more common Type 2 diabetes is closely connected to obesity, Type 1 is an autoimmune disorder, in which the body's immune system malfunctions and attacks insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas.

People with Type 1 eventually produce no insulin of their own and depend on injections or an insulin pump for survival. They must keep a near-constant watch on their blood sugar. If it is too high, it can slowly damage tiny blood vessels, sometimes leading to blindness, kidney damage and amputations. High blood sugar can also damage larger blood vessels, raising the risk of heart disease.

Scientists have been searching for both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes genes since the 1980s, but only in the last several years have they started finding them. Last July, a new Type 1-associated gene was discovered by a team led by Hakon Hakonarson, director of the new Center for Applied Genomics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

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