Is diabetes hereditary?

Diabetes is a disease that is known to develop not only in adults but children as well.
Family history is a risk factor for diabetes. This means that if your parent (one or both) have diabetes your risk of developing hypertension is increased. Hence people often think diabetes that diabetes runs in families or is hereditary. When a disease is supposed to be hereditary it means that it runs in the family and concerns genes. The genes are transferred from the parents to their children.

• Type 1 diabetes is supposed to be transferred by genes from parents to children. If the child inherits the gene for Type 1 diabetes he or she is at risk of developing type 1 diabetes. But if the gene is not transmitted then the person may not develop type 1 diabetes.

• But for type 2 diabetes, such a specific genetic pattern is not known. Hence your risk of developing type 2 diabetes depends on the number of people in your family with the disease. The closer the relation (like if one or both parent or your sibling has diabetes ) the stronger the risk.

You cannot change your family history or genetics. But changes in your lifestyle can lower your risk of developing diabetes. Adopting healthy lifestyle measures can help you to avoid the disease.

So make healthy lifestyle choices …

Dr Poonam Sachdeva, our in-house medical expert talks about the why what and how in diabetes.

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