Having Blue Eyes, Fair Skin May Raise Risk For Type 1 Diabetes

MedWire (5/10, Albert) reported, “Having blue eyes, and to a
lesser extent fair skin, increases a person’s risk of having Type 1 diabetes,”
according to a study published online in the journal Diabetes/Metabolism:
Research and Reviews. After assessing “iris color and skin type (by melanin
quantification) in 281 consecutive patients with type 1 diabetes…and 298
controls,” the researchers noted that they “have evaluated a possible
association between different single nucleotide polymorphisms of the OCA2, MC1R,
and MATP genes and the eye color and the fair skin in type 1 diabetes subjects.”