Researchers are working to develop a diagnostic device that can predict a person’s risk of diabetes.
A group of international scientists have found that type 2 diabetes can be predicted. In particular, this can be done by the content of the protein follistatin in the blood 19 years before the onset of the disease.
This is stated in an article published in the journal Nature Communications.
This conclusion is based on research that followed 5,318 people in two distinct regions in Sweden and Finland for 4 to 19 years.
Follistatin is a protein that is mostly secreted by the liver and is involved in metabolic regulation. The study looked into what happens to the body when the level of follistatin in the bloodstream rises too high.
The researchers used a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on 5,124 people from Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Italy to discover what controls blood follistatin levels. They discovered that glucokinase regulatory protein (GCKR) regulates follistatin levels genetically, which has an impact on several metabolic traits.
“We found that higher levels of the protein follistatin circulating in the blood predict type 2 diabetes up to nineteen years before the onset of the disease, regardless of other known risk factors, such as age, body mass index (BMI), fasting blood glucose levels, diet or physical activity,” said lead author work, Associate Professor of the University of Lund Dr. Yang De Marinis.
The researchers found that follistatin increases fat breakdown from adipose tissue, resulting in increased lipid accumulation in the liver, using clinical data from the German Tübingen Diabetes Family Study and cell biology research. As a result, the risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes increases.
“This study shows that follistatin has the potential to become an important biomarker to predict future type 2 diabetes, and it also brings us one step closer to the understanding of the mechanisms behind the disease,” said Yang De Marinis.
Image Credit: Getty
You were reading: The first sign of ‘Type 2 Diabetes’ named
