With over 7 million affected, the widespread disease diabetes mellitus poses an enormous challenge for our health system, which will increase in importance by the ageing society. 90% of patients suffer from type 2 diabetes, for which disease outbreak and course can be influenced both positively and negatively by lifestyle and diet .
Thus, the disease has a large prevention potential. So far, diagnostic biomarkers for the detection of a precurser of the disease, pre diabetes, were missing. If pre diabetes is diagnosed at an early stage and preventively treated, the development of severe insulin resistance can be prevented.
For the realisation of the "personalized prevention", a team of researchers of the Helmholtz Zentrum München reports now success in the identification of biomarkers: three biomarkers are described in the current issue of "Molecular Systems Biology" that allow for early detection and prediction about the course of illness.
To the Press release of Helmholtz Zentrum München (German)