Fact Check: Diabetes not a hereditary disease

KABUL (Pajhwok): Physicians have dismissed the fear of some people regarding diabetes whose parents have suffered from this disease saying the hereditary nature of diabetes could not be necessarily true.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood glucose.

Wafiullah, a resident of the capital Kabul, told Pajhwok Afghan News he had witnessed people whose parents infected with diabetes also suffered from the same disease.

The 25-year-old Wafiullah said: “I am still in a young age but I am sure when I get older I will certainly infected with diabetes because my father also suffered from diabetes.”

Rahimullah, a resident of Kar-i-Naw locality, said my mother suffered from sugar and now all her family members are very careful about the food they eat to avoid diabetes.

He said: “We have seen some people whose mother or father is diabetes, they also suffered from diabetes, everyone in our house is careful, believe me, our mother had diabetes, so we will also inherit this disease.”

Eftikhar Ahmad, a resident of the Kabul Qasaba area, said his uncle suffered from diabetes and died but when his family members got sick first they checked their blood sugar they thing that they would certainly infected with this disease because their father had it.

Many other people have similar beliefs.

Fact Check:

Physicians have said that it was not for sure that children of all parents suffering from diabetes should also get diabetes.

Dr. Wahdat Alkozai told Pajhwok Afghan News: “Type 2 diabetes has a stronger link to family history and lineage than type 1, and studies of twins have shown that genetics play a very strong role in the development of type 2 diabetes. Race can also play a role. Yet it also depends on environmental factors.”

He said in the second type of diabetics people up to the age of 40 get infected.

Alkozai added: “In this type, the genetic or hereditary issue plays a big role, which has a chance of being infected from fifty to eighty percent. I saw a book that showed this chance to be one hundred percent; That is, if one mother or father or both are suffering from diabetes, then the level of suffering of children is the same.”

He said: “Some other factors also play a role, for example, if a person is obese, he does not walk much, his mother or father is also suffering from diabetes, so the chances of him becoming infected are much higher, or for example, a person's parents have this condition, If he is suffering from a disease, but he exercises and is not fat, abstains, then the chance of suffering from it decreases, but it is not the case that one whose mother or father is suffering from diabetes, he will suffer from diabetes 100 percent and Those whose parents are not infected will not be infected.”

Internal Diseases Specialist Dr. Mohammad Bashir Haqmal said: “Genetics also plays a role in diabetes, that whose father or mother is suffering from diabetes has a 20 percent chance of passing it on to their children.”

Diabetes is also caused by environmental factors that do not play a role in genetics; In other words, there is a possibility that some people will get diabetes if their parents do not have diabetes.

Public opinion

Qari Fazal Rabi Labib, a resident of Kabul’s Pul-i-Charkhi area, said around five months ago he was diagnosed with diabetes.

50-year-old Labib said, his father and mother did not suffer from this disease and he was the first person to be diagnosed with this disease.

He said he has a shop and sets all day and this may be the factor that he suffered from diabetes.

Ahamd Khalid, a resident of Kabul City, said: “I think it is not right that parents have diabetes, then children will definitely have this disease, my mother had diabetes and I am fifty years old, Alhamdulillah, I have not been affected by diabetes yet, my habit is that I don't eat too much fat and sweets and I walk for more than an hour every day.”

Outcome: Health experts have rejected the concept that diabetes is hereditary and all the children of all diabetic partners would also be diagnosed with the diabetes.

Verdict: The Perception that children of diabetic parents would suffer diabetes is untrue.