Study of family history in patients with type II diabetes mellitus

Abstract Background: The type 2 Diabetes Mellitus is the most common type of diabetes which is triggered by various factors such as inheritance, obesity, nutrition, immobility and socioeconomic position and especially in people with genetic background. Objective: To show whether the disease is transferred from father and second degree relative of father or through mother and her second degree relative. Methods: This was a (cross-sectional) study on, 513 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who were randomly selected from patients referred to Yazd Diabetes Research Center. Findings: 34.2 % of patients had mothers with diabetes and in 19.8% of patients, fathers had diabetes. A positive family record among second degree relatives was shown in 29.7% of patients. Conclusion: Diabetes in mothers and maternal second degree families (uncle, aunt) was found to be more common than paternal second degree family (aunt-uncle), indicating that a positive family history of diabetes among maternal families was higher than paternal families and it could be assumed that the diabetes inheritance is more likely to be transferred from mother. More investigations are needed.