Diabetes management goal of diabetes care, although recent research suggests that the complications of diabetes may be caused by genetic factors or, in type 1 diabetics, by the continuing effects of the autoimmune disease which first caused the pancreas to lose its insulin-producing ability. Because blood sugar levels fluctuate throughout the day and glucose records are imperfect indicators of these changes, the percentage of hemoglobin which is glycosylated is used as a proxy measure of long-term glycemic control in research trials and clinical care of people with diabetes. This test, the hemoglobin A1c or glycosylated hemoglobin reflects average glucoses over the preceding
Epigenetics of diabetes Type 2 A possible link between DNA methylation and insulin resistance was shown through monozygotic twin comparisons and bisulfite pyrosequencing to measure the global DNA methylation of Alu repeats in peripheral blood leukocytes. Alu elements are known to create genomic instability and affect gene expression, and have been implicated in numerous human diseases. Epigenetic alterations arising during the lifetime of monozygotic twins in Alu repeats resulted in an increase in genomic s instability, and consequently cause insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. show that methylation levels at all four CpG sites displayed an increase in Alu methylation. This study provides the first