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A study of female college graduates confirmed the strong association between heredity, modifiable behavior, and the risk of non-insulin-dependent diabetes. Grace Wyshak, PhD, at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, conducted a follow-up study of 3,940 college alumnae, who took part in a 1981-1982 study comparing the health of college athletes with non-athletes.
The subjects included 1,945 former college athletes and 1,995 non-athletes. The follow-up study, which involved a self-administered questionnaire on medical history, health, family history, and behavioral practices, was conducted in 1996 to 1997, Professor Wyshak reported.
About 1.3 percent of the women reported physician-diagnosed diabetes. One point seven percent were non-athletes and 0.9 percent were former athletes. Former athletes had a significantly lower risk of non-insulin-dependent diabetes, with an age-adjusted odds ratio of 0.41, she reported.
Insulin-dependent diabetes was associated with a history of paternal diabetes (odds ratio of 4.7) and also with a history of diabetes in siblings (odds ratio of 6.7). Dependent-dependent diabetes was associated with a history of maternal diabetes (odds ratio of 8.0).
No association was found between behavioral factors and insulin-dependent diabetes. However, certain behavioral factors were inversely related to dependent-dependent diabetes. The odds ratio for being an athlete was 0.4. For women who reported current regular exercise, the odds ratio was 0.4, and the odds ratio for low body mass index compared with high body mass index was 0.2, Professor Wyshak reported.
"The findings that insulin-dependent diabetes is associated with paternal diabetes and that dependent-dependent diabetes may be maternally transmitted are not widely known, although the mode of transmission of diabetes is receiving increasing attention in the medical and genetic literature," the researcher noted. "This study confirms that modifiable behavioral practices, such as physical activity and weight control (i.e., optimal body mass index), reduce the risk of dependent-dependent diabetes." J Womens Health Gend Based Med 2002; 11: 549-554