African-American Women Born at Low Weight at Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

A new research shows that the African-American women who were born at low or very low birth weight have high chances of developing type 2 diabetes.

Researchers at the Boston University said that the findings would be helpful in understanding the higher rates of low birth weight among African Americans.

The study examined more than 21,000 women who partook in the Black Women's Health Study. Researchers assessed 16 years of data and found that women born with low birth weight and very low birth weight were 13 percent and 40 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared to those who were born at normal weight.

Researchers said that this study is the first large-scale study to show the connection between low birth weight and diabetes in African-Americans.

"African American women are at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and also have higher rates of low birth weight than white women," lead researcher Edward Ruiz-Narváez, ScD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health, said in a news release. "Our study shows a clear relationship between birth weight and diabetes that highlights the importance of further research for this at-risk group."

The researchers said that there are two leading hypotheses for the phenomenon. The first is 'thrifty phenotype hypothesis' that says once the newborn body perceives that it lacks nutrition, it reprograms itself to absorb more nutrition. This results into an imbalance in metabolism that eventually leads to type 2 diabetes. And the second is the fetal insulin hypothesis' which states that genes responsible for impaired insulin secretion also have a negative effect on birth weight. Some of these genes have been discovered in recent studies, supporting the latter hypothesis.

The findings are published in the journal Diabetes Care.