Low birth weight linked to higher incidence of type 2 diabetes in African American women

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-08/bumc-lbw082114.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 21-Aug-2014

Contact: Jenny Eriksen Leary
Boston University Medical Center
Low birth weight linked to higher incidence of type 2 diabetes in African American women

(Boston) — African American women born at a low or very low birth weight may be at a higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes. The findings, which appear in Diabetes Care, may explain in part the higher occurrence of type 2 diabetes in African American populations, which has a high prevalence of low birth weight.

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"African American women are at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and also have higher rates of low birth weight than white women," said Edward Ruiz-Narváez, ScD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. "Our study shows a clear relationship between birth weight and diabetes that highlights the importance of further research for this at-risk group."

According to the researchers, there are two leading hypotheses for the phenomenon. The first, known as the "thrifty phenotype hypothesis," states that once the newborn body perceives that it lacks nutrition, it reprograms itself to absorb more nutrition, causing an imbalance in metabolism that eventually leads to type 2 diabetes. The second, known as the "fetal insulin hypothesis," states that genes that are responsible for impaired insulin secretion also have a negative effect on birth weight. Some of these genes have been discovered in recent studies, supporting the latter hypothesis.

[Could be both.]