According to a press release dated Dec. 7, researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that a gene already implicated in the development of type 2 diabetes in adults also raises the risk of being overweight during childhood. The findings published in the online version of the journal Diabetes shed a light on the genetic origins of diabetes and may present an avenue for developing new drugs for the disease, which has been on the upswing in childhood and adolescence.

Researchers continue to unravel the complicated role of different diabetes-related genes in influencing body weight toward both lower and higher ends of the scale. The risk of developing type 2 diabetes in adulthood is often influenced by factors in the first year of life, including lower birth weight, as well as by higher body mass index (BMI) during childhood. Obesity is a well-known risk factor for type 2 diabetes.