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BMC Public Health
Published in: BMC Public Health 1/2014

Open Access 01-12-2014 | Research article

Exploring genetic variants predisposing to diabetes mellitus and their association with indicators of socioeconomic status

Authors: Börge Schmidt, Nico Dragano, André Scherag, Sonali Pechlivanis, Per Hoffmann, Markus M Nöthen, Raimund Erbel, Karl-Heinz Jöckel, Susanne Moebus

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2014

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Abstract

Background

The relevance of disease-related genetic variants for the explanation of social inequalities in complex diseases is unclear and empirical analyses are largely missing. The aim of our study was to examine whether genetic variants predisposing to diabetes mellitus are associated with socioeconomic status in a population-based cohort.

Methods

We genotyped 11 selected diabetes-related single nucleotide polymorphisms in 4655 participants (age 45-75 years) of the Heinz Nixdorf Recall study. Diabetes status was self-reported or defined by blood glucose levels. Education, income and paternal occupation were assessed as indicators of socioeconomic status. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the association of socioeconomic status and diabetes by estimating sex-specific and age-adjusted prevalence ratios and their corresponding 95%-confidence intervals. To explore the relationship between individual single nucleotide polymorphisms and socioeconomic status sex- and age-adjusted odds ratios were computed. We adjusted the alpha-level for multiple testing of 11 single nucleotide polymorphisms using Bonferroni’s method (α BF ~ 0.005). In addition, we explored the association of a genetic risk score with socioeconomic status.

Results

Social inequalities in diabetes were observed for all indicators of socioeconomic status. However, there were no significant associations between individual diabetes-related risk alleles and socioeconomic status with odds ratios ranging from 0.87 to 1.23. Similarly, the genetic risk score analysis revealed no evidence for an association.

Conclusions

Our data provide no evidence for an association between 11 diabetes-related risk alleles and different indicators of socioeconomic status in a population-based cohort, suggesting that the explored genetic variants do not contribute to health inequalities in diabetes.
Appendix
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Metadata
Title
Exploring genetic variants predisposing to diabetes mellitus and their association with indicators of socioeconomic status
Authors
Börge Schmidt
Nico Dragano
André Scherag
Sonali Pechlivanis
Per Hoffmann
Markus M Nöthen
Raimund Erbel
Karl-Heinz Jöckel
Susanne Moebus
Publication date
01-12-2014
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2014
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-609

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