Question:
I was chatting to one of my sisters (I have 3) the other day about how I was
getting on with my diabetes. I mentioned some statistics I'd read in a book
about diabetes, written for a parent concerned about their children's chance
of developing type 2. It went something like this:
"If you are a father with type 2 diabetes [ our father has type 2], each of
your children has a 5% chance of having diabetes. If one of your children
develops diabetes, any other children have a 10% chance of developing it."
I said to my sister, "So you have a one in 10 chance of getting diabetes".
She said, "Why does the fact that you've got it make me more likely to get
it?"
I said I had no idea of the reason, but those were the statistics. Anybody got
a better answer?
The book also said that having a diabetic father is moe of a risk factor than
having a diabetic mother. Any idea why, anyone?
Answer:
You need to revisit your source. The numbers above appear to be a
combination of type 1 statistics and incorrect statistics. The child of
a type 1 parent has a 5% risk. The child of a type 1 father has a 6.1%
risk. The child of type 1 mother who was younger than 25 at the birth
of the child has a 3.6%, older than 25 a 1.1% risk. If you have a type
1 sibling, you have a 5% risk.
The risks of type 2 are much harder to charaterize since type 2
is even more a collection of a variety of conditions with a common
clinical profile. In general, if you live to 70, you have a 11%
risk of developing type 2 independent of family history.
As to your question, I haven't seen any indication that having
both a sibling and parent with diabetes, of either type, imposes
a higher risk than only having one or the other. If your book
does indeed say that, would you post its title and the references
it cites, if any.
