Diabetic? It might be your genetic body clock
January 31, 2012 in NEWS by Suzanne Elvidge
Melatonin is the hormone that controls the body’s sleep-wake cycle, and researchers may have untangled the link between melatonin levels and increased risk of diabetes and heart disease (as seen in shift workers or people who have problems sleeping) by finding a connection between a change in the gene for a melatonin receptor and type II diabetes.
The researchers, from France and the UK, sequenced the exons (the DNA coding for proteins) in people with type II diabetes and healthy people and made a connection between type II diabetes and four variations in MTNR1B, the gene coding for the melatonin receptor 1B. The paper was published in Nature Genetics.
Professor Philippe Froguel, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, who led the study, said: “Blood sugar control is one of the many processes regulated by the body’s biological clock. This study adds to our understanding of how the gene that carries the blueprint for a key component in the clock can influence people’s risk of diabetes.
Research like this could be useful in screening for the risk of type II diabetes, allowing doctors to offer people advice, especially as they start shift work, and potentially help to develop treatments for diabetes designed for people with this mutation.
Bonnefond, A., Clément, N., Fawcett, K., Yengo, L., Vaillant, E., Guillaume, J., Dechaume, A., Payne, F., Roussel, R., Czernichow, S., Hercberg, S., Hadjadj, S., Balkau, B., Marre, M., Lantieri, O., Langenberg, C., Bouatia-Naji, N., Charpentier, G., Vaxillaire, M., Rocheleau, G., Wareham, N., Sladek, R., McCarthy, M., Dina, C., Barroso, I., Jockers, R., & Froguel, P. (2012). Rare MTNR1B variants impairing melatonin receptor 1B function contribute to type 2 diabetes Nature Genetics DOI: 10.1038/ng.1053
Hey There Genomeengineering,
Very interesting, Some day it might be possible for everyone to have genetic screening to discover which diseases they are likely to develop and how best to prevent and treat them for any given individual. According to work published in the journal Diabetes Care in December 2011, that day has arrived… at least for a certain number of people with Type 2 diabetes.
Thanks