ABSTRACT
Giuseppina Imperatore1, David J Pettitt2, Robert L Hanson3, William C. Knowler and Robert G. Nelson3 1Division of Diabetes Translation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, US; 2Sansum Medical Research Institute, Santa Barbara, California, USA; 3Phoenix Epidemiology and Clinical Research Branch, NIDDK, Phoenix, USA
Reports of nephropathy developing in some patients with apparently well controlled diabetes and not developing in some patients even after years of severe hyperglycemia lead to the conclusion, expressed by several researchers [1-5], that some, but not all, individuals are predisposed to the development of diabetic renal disease. This chapter reviews some of the data, which indicate that there are familial differences in the predisposition to diabetic renal disease. If this familial predisposition is genetic, there must be an interaction between the genes and the environment, and it is often difficult to differentiate between genetic inheritance and the effect of a common environment shared by family members.
