Personal therapies may help manage diabetes better

Boston, Sept. 23: Inherited genetic changes can explain why a “onesizefits- all” treatment for diabetes is not always successful, say scientists who identified five distinct groups of DNA sites that drive the illness in unique ways.

The study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, suggests that a personalised therapy tailored to each person's physiology may help better manage diabetes.

Scientists from the Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US analysed genomic data with a computational tool that incorporates genetic complexity.

“When treating type 2 diabetes, we have a dozen or so medications we can use, but after you start someone on the standard algorithm, it's primarily trial and error,” said Jose Florez, an endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital ( MGH) in the US.

“We need a more granular approach that addresses the many different molecular processes leading to high blood sugar,” said Florez, also a professor at Harvard Medical School.

It is known that type 2 diabetes can be broadly grouped into cases driven either by the inability of pancreatic beta cells to make enough insulin, known as insulin deficiency, or by the inability of liver, muscle or fat tissues to use insulin properly, known as insulin resistance.

Previous research attempted to define more subtypes of type 2 diabetes based on indicators such as beta- cell function, insulin resistance, or body- mass index, but those traits can vary greatly through life and during the course of disease.

Inherited genetic differences

are present at birth, and so a more reliable method would be to create subtypes based on DNA variations.