Early metabolic defects for developing diabetes mellitus among offspring of patients with type 2 diabetes are independent of gender.

The aim of the study was to investigate if the female offspring of patients with Type 2 diabetes have more metabolic defects for developing diabetes mellitus than their male counterparts. Thirty-four offspring (10 males, 24 females) of patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus aged 28.9 +/- 1.5 years (mean +/- SEM) underwent a standard oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTT; 75 g glucose in 300 ml water). Anthropometric indices, plasma lipids and blood pressure were measured while insulin resistance (IR) and sensitivity (%S) were assessed using the Homeostasis Model Assessment (HOMA) method. All the offspring had normal glucose tolerance but high HOMA-derived IR values (27.2 +/- 4.2 vs. 22.5 +/- 2.7 pmol/mmol/l, p > 0.05) and low %S (48.1 +/- 5.1 vs. 50.6 +/- 3.9%, p > 0.05), all of which did not differ on gender comparisons. Multiple linear regression analyses suggest that gender had no influence on the outcome of the result (p = 0.37). Again, body mass index (BMI), fasting serum insulin, plasma glucose, triglyceride, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol were all similar in both genders (p > 0.05). The results suggest that though the offspring manifested metabolic defects for developing diabetes in later life, this susceptibility is independent of gender in the population studied. Further studies with a larger sample size are warranted to confirm these findings in this population.