Diabetes in Hong Kong Chinese: evidence for familial clustering and parental effects

To investigate transmission patterns of diabetes and their relationships with clinical characteristics in Hong Kong Chinese patients with late-onset (age > or =35 years) type 2 diabetes.

This study involved 2,310 patients consecutively selected from a hospital clinic-based diabetes registry. These patients all reported the diabetes status of their parents as well as siblings.

Approximately 36% of the 2,310 patients reported at least 1 affected parent or sibling (25 and 21% reported at least 1 diabetic parent and sibling, respectively). These patients, irrespective of their sex, were more likely to have a diabetic mother than a diabetic father (17 vs. 13% of the male patients and 18 vs. 9% of the female patients, P<0.01). The male patients were more likely than the female patients to have a diabetic father (13 vs. 9%, P<0.01). The female patients with a diabetic mother were found to have higher levels of plasma total cholesterol compared with the female patients with a diabetic father in multiple comparisons with adjustment for significance (5.56+/-1.30 vs. 5.09+/-0.95 mmol/l, P<0.05). In 2-group comparisons, there was also evidence that the male patients with a diabetic father had higher BMI values than the male patients with a diabetic mother (25.9+/-3.5 vs. 25.0+/-3.5 kg/m2, P<0.05).

We found familial clustering of diabetes in the Hong Kong Chinese population as well as a significant maternal influence and a male sex-specific paternal effect. We suggest that both maternal and paternal factors may be implicated in the development of type 2 diabetes in the Chinese population.