Source: DGNews  |  Posted 8 years ago

By Charlene Laino

NEW ORLEANS, LA -- June 18, 2003 -- Women with high body iron stores may be at increased risk for type 2 diabetes, according to a new analysis from the Nurses Health Study.

Rui Jiang, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, presented the findings here on June 17th at the 63rd Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association.

While type 2 diabetes is a common manifestation of hemochromatosis, previous studies looking at whether high iron stores predict the risk of the disease among healthy persons have shown conflicting results, she said.

The current prospective, nested, case-control study addressed the question in a large cohort of initially healthy women, looking at 2 biomarkers of iron stores -- serum ferritin and ratio of soluble transferrin receptor to serum ferritin (TfR/ferritin) -- in relation to the development of the disease. The cohort consisted of 32,826 women in the Nurses Health Study without signs of heart disease, cancer, or diabetes when they provided blood samples in 1989