Aims/hypothesis
Type 2 diabetes is more prevalent in US American minority populations of African or Native American descent than it is in
European Americans. However, the proportion of this epidemiological difference that can be ascribed to genetic or environmental
factors is unknown. To determine whether genetic ancestry is correlated with diabetes risk in Latinos, we estimated the proportion
of European ancestry in case–control samples from Mexico and Colombia in whom socioeconomic status had been carefully ascertained.
Methods
We genotyped 67 ancestry-informative markers in 499 participants with type 2 diabetes and 197 controls from Medellín (Colombia),
as well as in 163 participants with type 2 diabetes and 72 controls from central Mexico. Each participant was assigned a socioeconomic
status scale via various measures.
Results
Although European ancestry was associated with lower diabetes risk in Mexicans (OR [95% CI] 0.06 [0.02–0.21], p = 2.0 × 10−5) and Colombians (OR 0.26 [0.08–0.78], p = 0.02), adjustment for socioeconomic status eliminated the association in the Colombian sample (OR 0.64 [0.19–2.12], p = 0.46) and significantly attenuated it in the Mexican sample (OR 0.17 [0.04–0.71], p = 0.02). Adjustment for BMI did not change the results.
Conclusions/interpretation
The proportion of non-European ancestry is associated with both type 2 diabetes and lower socioeconomic status in admixed
Latino populations from North and South America. We conclude that ancestry-directed search for genetic markers associated
with type 2 diabetes in Latinos may benefit from information involving social factors, as these factors have a quantitatively
important effect on type 2 diabetes risk relative to ancestry effects.
Keywords Genetic admixture - Genetic association - Latinos - Socioeconomic status - Type 2 diabetes
J. C. Florez and A. L. Price contributed equally to this work.
M. T. Tusié-Luna, A. Ruiz-Linares and D. Reich co-directed the study.