Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
I've been reading up on mitochondria this month, in the writings of Nick Lane, Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life, and Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World. There was a lot of interesting information in both books, but because at times Lane writes in a confused way about the relationship of diabetes and mitochondrial dysfunction, I became curious about what is actually known about mitochondrial failure and diabetes and started reading up on the subject.
It turns out that there is a distinct genetic form of diabetes caused by the A3243G mutation in the mitochondrial DNA-encoded tRNA(Leu,UUR) gene. It causes an adult onset form of diabetes that can be misdiagnosed as either Type 1 or Type 2 depending on how late the onset is. Some people get it in their 20s, while others only develop it in middle age. The average age of onset is 38 years. Whatever the time of onset, 100% of those who have this gene will eventually become diabetic, with a form of diabetes characterized by failure to secrete insulin, rather than insulin resistance.
http://diabetesupdate.blogspot.com/2011/12/mitochondrial-diabetes-another-non.html
It turns out that there is a distinct genetic form of diabetes caused by the A3243G mutation in the mitochondrial DNA-encoded tRNA(Leu,UUR) gene. It causes an adult onset form of diabetes that can be misdiagnosed as either Type 1 or Type 2 depending on how late the onset is. Some people get it in their 20s, while others only develop it in middle age. The average age of onset is 38 years. Whatever the time of onset, 100% of those who have this gene will eventually become diabetic, with a form of diabetes characterized by failure to secrete insulin, rather than insulin resistance.
http://diabetesupdate.blogspot.com/2011/12/mitochondrial-diabetes-another-non.html