Glutathione S-transferases gene polymorphism influence on the age of diabetes type 2 onset.

Introduction: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a multifactorial disease affecting mostly adults older than 40 years. The aim of the study was to examine gene polymorphism influence on the risk of T2D, especially in young adults.

Research Design And Methods: 200 diabetic patients and 221 healthy controls participated in this study. Three gene polymorphism have been analyzed: (single-nucleotide polymorphism IleVal), homozygous deletion of (null/null) and (null/null), using TaqMan real-time quantitative PCR.

Results: The distribution of examined polymorphisms was similar in patient group and control group. Statistically significant differences were demonstrated for the combination of and / genotypes between patients diagnosed before 40 years of age and healthy people (12.5% vs 0.9%, p=0.016). Moreover, all three examined gene polymorphism together (, and genotype) was observed in 12.5% of patients diagnosed before 40 years of age and in 0.5% of healthy individuals (p=0.013).

Conclusion: In conclusion, the results suggest that polymorphism may be one of the risk factors for developing T2D at a younger age than the T2D population average.