Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Parental history of diabetes and specific gene variants are risk factors for type 2 diabetes, but the extent to which these factors are associated is unknown. METHODS: We examined the association between parental history of diabetes and a type 2 diabetes genetic risk score (GRS) in two cohort studies from Finland (population-based PPP-Botnia study) and the US (family-based Framingham Offspring Study). RESULTS: Mean (95% CI) GRS increased from 16.8 (16.8-16.9) to 16.9 (16.8-17.1) to 17.1 (16.8-17.4) among PPP-Botnia participants with 0, 1, and 2 parents with diabetes, respectively (p(trend)=0.03). The trend was similar among Framingham Offspring but was not statistically significant (p=0.07). The meta-analyzed p value for trend from the two studies was 0.005. CONCLUSIONS: The very modest associations reported above suggest that the increased risk of diabetes in offspring of parents with diabetes is largely the result of shared environmental/lifestyle factors and/or hitherto unknown genetic factors.