Diabetes and the Hereditary factor

[amandalaq]

Hello,

I am 21yrs old and I am dating someone who is 22. We have Diabietes type 1 on both sides of our family tree. My Aunt and Uncle have it and His father has it.
1) My question to you is what is the risk of us getting married and passing Diabetes to our children. Could you explain how this works?
2)I know how the virus works but what about the added risk of having it on both sides?
3)Is it true that it Skips a Generation?
4)I have heard from the American Diabietes Asso. That "The majority of people who develop type 1 diabetes have no history of diabetes in their family.Researchers in diabetes are working to discover what environmental factors, when combined with a genetic predisposition, might begin the chain of events that leads to diabetes. No one has found conclusive results yet."
Or that “Ninety percent of children who develop type 1 diabetes actually have no relative with the disease. ”

usnews.com says that- If one child in a family has type 1 diabetes, siblings have about a 1 in 10 risk of developing it by age 50. • The risk for a child of a parent with type 1 diabetes is lower if it is the mother who has diabetes than if it is the father. If the mother is 25 or younger when the child is born, the child's risk is 1 in 25, compared with about 1 in 17 when the father has diabetes. When the mother is over age 25, the risk drops to 1 in 100 -- virtually the same as for the average American. The risks are somewhat higher when a parent developed diabetes before age 1
While WebMD says if 2 diabetic parents have kids they have a 20% chance , Thanks!

[JDRF-Team-aj]

HI Amada,
First let me thank you for posting on the JDRF message board and also commend you for doing your research.  I do have to let you know we are all volunteers here and cannot in any way give you any medical advice.  I happen to be “mom” to Jeff who was diagnosed at the age of 11 and is now 36 years.
I believe the key statement you have found in doing your research  is “no one has found conclusive results yet.” But I will say from the number of families I have met your # 3 is not true, I have seen it repeat generation after generation.  I have also “heard” that there is greater risk in passing it on if the father not the mother has type 1, this always stuck with me because I have a son, an only child, and we cannot trace type 1 anywhere on either side of our family.
If your question goes more to “if we fall in love should we run this risk and get married?”  If that is your question, only you can answer that, but again there is no conclusive evidence at this point in time…besides look at my family, no type 1 anywhere until my son was diagnosed.
Best of luck to you, I wish I could give you a definitive answer, but it doesn’t exist.

[JDRF-Team-JW]

I am not a medical professional but I have had Type I Diabetes for 11 years now. I was diagnosed at the age of 18 and it came as a complete shock since no one in my family had any type of diabetes. The only one I knew of was my great-grandmother who developed diabetes late in life and was put on insulin at the time. So it doesn't look like Type I Diabetes is hereditary, although that is what I read when I was first diagnosed. However in recent years I've been seeing more and more articles stating that it's Type 2 diabetes that is more likely to be passed on. Most of the Type I Diabetics I know do not have diabetes running in the family. I don't believe you will be putting your children at risk if you and your boyfriend decide to start a family but I don't have the medical knowledge to assure you of that. Your best bet is to check with a diabetes professional like an endocrinologist or even an OB/Gyn who specializes in diabetic pregnancies -they can probably come up with some statistics that would be helpful to you in making that decision. Unless there is a very good chance that your children will be diabetic I don't think you need to worry about it too much -most of the time these things are out of our hands. If your children are supposed to be diabetic they will be regardless of whether or not anyone else in the family is, and if it's not mean to be -they'll avoid it even if everyone else related to them is diabetic. I understand you would not want to put your children at risk and I think that's very responsible and caring (I worry about that too sometimes -not having children yet myself and being diabetic)but also remember that having diabetes is not the end of the world and people live with it just fine :) I wish you all the best!

[gentgeen]

There are some very specific, relativly rare, forms of diabetes known as Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young (MODY) that are known to have genetic causes. There are six identified types of MODY, each linked to a specific genetic mutation which is autosomal dominant, meaning a child of someone with MODY will have a 50% chance of inheriting the disease.

I don't want to scare anyone, as the incidence of these forms of diabetes is very low, perhaps less than 5% of those diagnosed have a form of MODY. But there are tests for the gene mutations wich cause it which would tell you if you or your boyfriend carry one of them. Whatever the results, the information would help you make any decisions about starting a family.