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Development of type 2 diabetes mellitus is affected by environmental factors (lifestyle) as well as by genes. With the sequencing of the human genome, we expected to quickly identify the genes that render a person vulnerable to developing type 2 diabetes. However, although several of the approximately 22,000 human genes have been linked to diabetes, they aren't very powerful predictors of who will get the disease. Traditional environmental risk factors for type 2 diabetes (i.e., diet, exercise, and weight) are better predictors than known genes but still are only modestly prognostic.
A new study suggests that a more powerful predictor of type 2 diabetes than either human genes or traditional risk factors is a new factor that is both environm…