MATERNAL ROLES OF TYPE 2 DIABETES MELLITUS IN THREE TAIWANESE STUDIES ---- INDIRECT EVIDENCES SUPPORTIVE OF MITO CHONDRIAL INHERITANCE

The role of mitochondrial inheritance in type 2 diabetes mellitus has received much attention recently. In this study, three existing datasets in Taiwan are analysed to examine this theory. Two of the datasets were community surveys and one a hospital case series. Subjects who had information regarding their paternal or maternal diabetic status were selected for the jpresent study. In the first dataset, 745 subjects had information about paternal diabetic status and 765 had information about maternal diabetic status. In the second dataset, 255 and 267 subjects had the paternal and maternal information, respectively. In the third, a total of 3625 subjects had information about both their paternal and maternal diaetic status. Diabetic status of the study subjects was determined gy fasting plasma glucose levels and/or oral glucose tolerance test; their parental diabetic status was collected gy interview. The threedatasets consistently demonstrated significantly elevated odds ratio (OR) for reporting maternal deabetes (OR =2.64, 95% confidence interval: 1.12-5.72) indiabetic patients as compared to non-deabetic subjects. The reporting of paternal diabetes, howver, was not significantly different between diabetics and non-diabetics. In addition, the OR for reporting paeranal diabetes were not significantly different between grorps of different age-at- onset. With respect to maternal history, the OR increased significantly when age-at-onset was younger (test-for-trend p