Lack of excess maternal transmission of type 2 diabetes in a Korean population

The purpose of this study was to assess the familial clustering of type 2 diabetes and to investigate the presence of excess maternal transmission of type 2 diabetes in Korea. The medical records of 56,492 subjects (31,680 men and 24,812 women), who attended the Health Promotion Center were examined. The subjects were questioned about their parents’ diabetes status. All study subjects were classified into the three groups (normal fasting glucose (NFG), impaired fasting glucose (IFG), and diabetes). Offspring with paternal diabetes (odds ratio 2.54, 95% CI 2.22–2.91, P<0.001) and those with maternal diabetes (odds ratio 3.10, 95% CI 2.76–3.49, P<0.001) were at increased risk for diabetes when compared to subjects without parental diabetes and adjusted for other clinical and biochemical variables. Offspring with bilineal parental diabetes were at a greater risk for diabetes (odds ratio 6.09, 95% CI 4.55–8.16, P<0.001) when compared to subjects without parental diabetes. In both genders, offspring with maternal diabetes showed no increased risk for diabetes (odds ratio 1.22, 95% CI 0.92–1.37, P=0.266 in men; odds ratio 1.31, 95% CI 0.95–1.81, P=0.104 in women) when compared with those with paternal diabetes. The data suggested that parental type 2 diabetes was an independent risk factor for offspring type 2 diabetes in this Korean population. Excess maternal transmission of type 2 diabetes was not observed.