When diabetes is diagnosed in a person under 45 years of age, it is very convenient that a genetic study be carried out to identify whether it is the variant called MODY (from the English Matury-Oset Diabetes of the Young or youth diabetes of startlate), because the treatment to be followed will depend on this.
The scientific community has identified 11 genes that cause diabetes mody, and the third of them is a specific variant for the Mexican population, recognized as “Hepatic Nuclear Factor 1 ALFA”, which regulates the growth of cells that produce insulin in thepancreas.
“The prevalence in Mexico is not known, and there are few countries that have records of their presence, because to identify this type of diabetes, a study of the whole family has to be done.The genes that lead to the MODY variant are more frequent in populations with ancestors than in other regions, as shown by a sequencing in two thousand people with diabetes, of which two percent of them had this variant. ”
This is detail by Dr. Carlos A. Aguilar Salinas, a researcher at the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition Salvador Zubirán, who reiterates in the importance of diagnosing in a timely manner.
Mody diabetes is inherited in a dominant autosomIt is found in the ability of the pancreas of the production of this hormone.
The most common is that it appears for 45 years, although some authors propose minor ages.That is why, although there are no symptoms that can suggest the presence of diabetes, it is very important to perform exams that discard or confirm the disease, even if they are less than 45 years old.
Sub-Classifications 1 and 3 of Diabetes Modly, relatively the most common, are characterized by being more aggressive, because more cases of damage at the renal level and in the retinas are associated with them, so the treatment indicates medications called sulfonylureas (oral antidiabetics).
On the other hand, in the type 2 patients self -control or require hypoglycemic ages at low doses, which maintains very good control of the disease, while subtype 5 usually requires metformin or insulin and does not respond to sulfonylureas.
Dr. Aguilar Salinas adds that some medical care centers have the ability to look for the causal mutations of the disease, and to be diagnosed, they must proceed to look for it through genetic studies in the family.
The conducive will be to establish changes in common habits so as not to gain weight, for example, so that the expression of the condition is delayed as much as possible, in addition to the treatments being implemented in a timely manner.He reiterates that Mody is the only diabetes variant in which genetic studies have a clinical application.
“You have to educate medical service providers to identify this variant earlier.The message is simple, all people who have an early appearance of Modly diabetes, before 45, have to be invited to evaluate, ”concludes the specialist.
