Genetics of Diabetic Micro- and Macrovascular Complications

Abstract

The micro- and macrovascular long-term complications of diabetes account for the majority of mortality and morbidity in diabetes. The diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy is highly correlated with the presence of other complications and associated with an increased risk of mortality, whereas cardiovascular disease is often the final cause of death in diabetes. While environmental factors, especially the blood glucose level, play an important role in the development of diabetic complications, the familial clustering of diabetic complications suggests that genetic factors affect their risk as well. As for most of the common and complex diseases, linkage studies and candidate gene studies have resulted in only a few robust genetic risk factors for diabetic complications. Whereas genome-wide association studies have identified multiple susceptibility loci for chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease in the nondiabetic population, the first results are now emerging from genome-wide association studies on micro-and macrovascular complications in persons with diabetes as well.