In France, more than 2.5 million people are today affected by diabetes, or 4% of the adult population and, according to INSEE, this number could increase by 26% by 2020. “This is a serious public health problem and prevention is the key, but so far we did not quite know how to carry it out ”explains Dr Guillaume Charpentier, President of CERITD (the Study and Research Center for the Intensification of Diabetes Treatment) and Head of the diabetology service at the Center Hospitalier Sud-Francilien.
In terms of diabetes prevention, doctors have, in recent years, mainly targeted people in a state of “pre-diabetes” that is to say with a abdominal obesity and possibly blood sugar abnormalities. But prevention measures have yielded mixed results: “After five years of observation, we have half the number of proven diabetes in individuals who have followed prevention measures. It is therefore interesting to eat less and move more, but the result remains a little disappointing because half of these people develop diabetes despite everything ”explains Dr. Charpentier who concluded, with his colleagues, that a lot of intervention was needed. earlier. When abdominal obesity has not yet formed. But how do you spot people with pre-diabetes?
Diabetes: how to participate in the Descendance study?
“Taking into account the family mode of transmission of type 2 diabetes, attention must be focused on highly predisposed subjects, to be sought among the children of parents themselves suffering from type 2 diabetes.” Announces Dr. Charpentier. In fact, about a third of these children will become diabetic in adulthood. It is therefore to better identify these children “at risk” that the CERITD launch the Descendance program… and that it seek 500 families to validate this tool. Profile of these test families: people with type 2 diabetes, of whom at least one diabetic parent is still alive and of whom a brother or sister over the age of 35 is non-diabetic. ” From the elements collected from these 500 families, we will be able to develop the risk equation capable of “predicting” the onset of diabetes in children of diabetics “ concludes Dr Charpentier.
In practice
You have type 2 diabetes:
– And parent with children, one of whom is type 2 diabetic (without age criteria) and the other non-diabetic (over 35 years old).
– Or child (without age criteria) of a parent (mother, father) with type 2 diabetes (living) and with a non-diabetic brother and or sister over 35 years old.
To participate in the Descendance program: contact the toll-free number 0 800 300 341 or visit the website www.ceritd.fr
>> Also discover: our special diabetes file
