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BMC Public Health
Published in: BMC Public Health 1/2019

Open Access 01-12-2019 | Research article

Association of genetic and behavioral characteristics with the onset of diabetes

Authors: Carmen D. Ng, Jordan Weiss

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2019

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Abstract

Background

Prior work has established sociodemographic, lifestyle, and behavioral risk factors for diabetes but the contribution of these factors to the onset of diabetes remains unclear when accounting for genetic propensity for diabetes. We examined the contribution of a diabetes polygenic score (PGS) to the onset of diabetes in the context of modifiable known risk factors for diabetes.

Methods

Our sample consisted of 15,190 respondents in the United States-based Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal study with up to 22 years of follow-up. We performed multivariate Cox regression models stratified by race (non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black) with time-varying covariates.

Results

We observed 4217 (27.76%) cases of incident diabetes over the survey period. The diabetes PGS was statistically significantly associated with diabetes onset for both non-Hispanic whites (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.38, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.30, 1.46) and non-Hispanic blacks (HR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.06, 1.40) after adjusting for a range of known risk factors for diabetes, highlighting the critical role genetic endowment might play. Nevertheless, genetics do not downplay the role that modifiable characteristics could still play in diabetes management; even with the inclusion of the diabetes PGS, several behavioral and lifestyle characteristics remained significant for both race groups.

Conclusions

The effects of genetic and lifestyle characteristics should be taken into consideration for both future studies and diabetes management.
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Household income was the sum of all income in a household, including respondent’s and spouse’s income from wages, pension and annuity, social security, disability, and retirement, unemployment and workers compensation, other government income, as well as household capital and other income.
 
2
Household wealth was the net value of total household wealth including primary residence, other real estate, transportation, businesses, stocks and bonds, checking and savings accounts, bonds, total mortgage, other home loans, debt, and individual retirement accounts.
 
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Metadata
Title
Association of genetic and behavioral characteristics with the onset of diabetes
Authors
Carmen D. Ng
Jordan Weiss
Publication date
01-12-2019
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2019
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7618-z

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