Question

What should parents know about passing diabetes to their children?

Answer 1

Type 1: child is at risk

If you are a man with type 1 diabetes, the odds of your child developing diabetes are 1 in 17. If you are a woman with type 1 diabetes and your child was born before you were 25, your child's risk is 1 in 25; if your child was born after you turned 25, your child's risk is 1 in 100.

Type 1 diabetes

In most cases of type 1 diabetes, people need to inherit risk factors from both parents. We think these factors must be more common in whites because whites have the highest rate of type 1 diabetes.

Because most people who are at risk do not get diabetes, researchers want to find out what the environmental triggers are. One trigger might be related to cold weather. Type 1 diabetes develops more often in winter than summer and is more common in places with cold climates. Another trigger might be viruses. Perhaps a virus that has only mild effects on most people triggers type 1 diabetes in others.

If you are a man with type 1 diabetes, the odds of your child developing diabetes are 1 in 17. If you are a woman with type 1 diabetes and your child was born before you were 25, your child's risk is 1 in 25; if your child was born after you turned 25, your child's risk is 1 in 100.

Type 2 diabetes

It has several causes: genetics and lifestyle are the most important ones. A combination of these factors can cause insulin resistance, when your body doesn’t use insulin as well as it should. Insulin resistance is the most common cause of type 2 diabetes.

Genetics Play a Role in Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes can be hereditary. That doesn’t mean that if your mother or father has (or had) type 2 diabetes, you’re guaranteed to develop it; instead, it means that you have a greater chance of developing type 2.

Lifestyle Is Very Important, Too

Genes do play a role in type 2 diabetes, but lifestyle choices are also important. You can, for example, have a genetic mutation that may make you susceptible to type 2, but if you take good care of your body, you may not develop diabetes. When two people have the same genetic mutation. One of them eats well, watches their cholesterol, and stays physically fit, and the other is overweight (BMI greater than 25) and inactive. The person who is overweight and inactive is much more likely to develop type 2 diabetes because certain lifestyle choices greatly influence how well your body uses insulin.

Lifestyle choices that affect the development of type 2 diabetes include:

Lack of exercise: Physical activity has many benefits—one of them being that it can help you avoid type 2 diabetes, if you’re susceptible.

Unhealthy meal planning choices: A meal plan filled with high-fat foods and lacking in fiber (which you can get from grains, vegetables, and fruits) increases the likelihood of type 2.

Overweight/Obesity: Lack of exercise and unhealthy meal planning choices can lead to obesity, or make it worse. Being overweight makes it more likely that you’ll become insulin resistant and can also lead to many other health conditions.

Insulin Resistance

That combination of factors—genetic susceptibility and lifestyle choices—leads to insulin resistance. If your body is insulin resistant, it doesn’t use insulin properly. When body may produce enough insulin to transport the glucose to the cells (you can read more about how insulin works in our article on insulin), but unfortunately, the body resists that insulin.Glucose builds up in the blood when you are insulin resistant, leading to the symptoms associated with type 2 diabetes.