Mutation may be responsible for diabetes risk in Mexican population

A research team directed by Dr. Karol Estrada analyzed genetic sequencing of 8000 Mexicans and found a mutated gene related to diabetes in 30% of mestizos and in half the indigenous population.

The largest genetic study of type II diabetes made between Mexican population has identified a gene present in mestizos (mixed race) and indigenous people of the country that rises five times the likelihood of developing the disease, compared to other populations of the world. The study integrates researchers from the Broad Institute (Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the National Institute of Nutrition and the Institute of Biomedical Research of the UNAM.

The research results were reported in June 2014 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which notes that the mutated gene called SLC16A11 occurs in 30 percent of the mestizo population and up to 50 percent of the Mexican indigenous.

In this study, the scientist Karol Estrada, who works for the Broad Institute in Boston, directed the genetic sequencing analysis using computational elements.

To locate the gene, the first part of the research of DNA samples of more than eight thousand Mexicans, half of whom live in Mexico City and one in Los Angeles, California were taken; in the second stage just over four thousand attended nationals, with a ratio of 75 percent in the capital and the remaining in the California city.

Read the full, original story: Researcher finds diabetes related mutation in Mexican population

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