IMM thesis: Modifiable factors and complications in diabetes
Welcome to Yuxia Wei's presentation of her thesis ”Risk factors and prognosis of diabetes with and without an autoimmune component”.
Time: September 27 at 9.00 AM
Location: Sal Petrén (Ground floor in Wargentinhuset), Nobels väg 12B and Zoom
Supervisor: Sofia Carlsson, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM)
Opponent: Sarah H. Wild, Professor, Usher Institute, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh
Three questions to Yuxia
What is the thesis about?
The thesis is about modifiable factors over the life course and the risk of developing different types of diabetes, including type 1 diabetes, latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA), and type 2 diabetes. We also investigate the risk of developing different complications and disease trajectories in people with newly diagnosed LADA.
Can you tell us about some interesting results?
We found the people with LADA have similarly high risk of death and developing cardiovascular diseases as people with type 2 diabetes, but worse glycemic control and much higher risk of developing diabetic retinopathy. This indicates the importance of differentiating LADA from type 2 diabetes in clinical practice for better diabetes management.
We observed distinct disease trajectories and complication profiles in LADA patients when we stratified them according to their levels of the autoantibody GADA (glutamic acid decarboxylase antibody). Compared to LADA with high GADA, those with low GADA levels are more likely to have cardiovascular disease already at the time of diabetes diagnosis, more likely to suffer from recurrent cardiovascular events and have higher risk of death. LADA patients with high GADA levels on the other hand, have worse glycemic control and higher risk of suffering from a first cardiovascular event after diabetes diagnosis than those with low GADA. These findings emphasize the importance of considering autoantibody levels for better LADA management.
What further research is needed in this area?
There are many aspects regarding different diabetes types/subtypes in the continuous diabetes spectrum that warrant deeper investigation in the future.
For example, future larger studies with longer follow-up duration are needed to verify the potential different disease trajectories in LADA patients as stratified by autoimmunity, to investigate how clinical characteristics such as glucose level, blood pressure, and lipid profiles affect the development of complications in people with LADA, and to evaluate the optimal treatment strategy for LADA patients.
Regarding risk factors for the occurrence of diabetes, future studies are warranted to investigate subtypes of diabetes that are not covered by this thesis, such as adult-onset type 1 diabetes and early-onset type 2 diabetes.
Read the thesis
Follow the dissertation in Zoom
https://ki-se.zoom.us/j/67520683952?pwd=1K7KiJa4eE4aQSqH4t7ex1lescaaxA.1
Meeting ID: 675 2068 3952
Passcode: 554321