Nutritional Endocrinology Practitioner Training (NEPT)
Clinical Pearl
February 21st, 2016

SNPs Involved in Blood Sugar Balance

One of the things I see huge variations in is the ability of clients to manage blood sugar. While diet and lifestyle are HUGE factors, we very regularly see that some people have to be extra-super-duper careful. That’s because there are genetic factors at play that impact the ability to keep blood glucose at an optimal level.

The SNPs that follow (single nucleotide polymorphisms aka, in layperson’s terms, “genetic mutations”) are related to blood sugar balance, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes.

I have a good number of these SNPs, so that’s why I have to be very careful.

• MC4R rs17782312
• IGF1R RS 2229765
• IRS1 rs2943634 – related to tyrosine kinase and increased risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes
• MTRR A66G rs1801394 associated with metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance
• MTHFR C677T rs1801133 associated with metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance
• TCF7L2, which affects insulin secretion and glucose production
• ABCC8, the sulfonylurea urea receptor, which helps regulate insulin
• calpain 10, which is associated with type 2 diabetes risk in Mexican Americans
• GLUT2, glucose transporter 2, which helps move glucose into the pancreas
• GCGR, the glucagon receptor
• AKT2 R208K and R467W, the serine/threonine-protein kinase, related to severe insulin resistance and diabetes

 

Many genes have been associated with type 1 diabetes. They are listed HERE:

http://snpedia.com/index.php/Type-1_diabetes

If you’d like to dig deeper, here’s a good reference:

http://cardiab.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2840-11-133