️ Episode 88: Stable Heritability of Type 1 Diabetes Over Three Decades in Sweden

In this episode of PaperCast Base by Base, we explore a Swedish nationwide register-based study that assesses whether the heritability of childhood-onset type 1 diabetes has changed from 1982 to 2010 and how environmental factors have contributed to the rising incidence.

Study Highlights:

Leveraging data from nearly three million children born in Sweden between 1982 and 2010, the authors estimated heritability and non-shared environmental contributions to type 1 diabetes variance using sibling-based liability threshold models.

They found that the heritability of childhood-onset type 1 diabetes remained consistently high at around 0.83 across birth cohorts.

Age-specific analyses revealed higher genetic contributions in younger-onset cases and stable heritability across age groups.

Environmental exposures including maternal smoking during pregnancy and childhood adiposity collectively explained less than 10% of the observed increase in incidence between 1982 and 2000.

Conclusion:

These results underscore the enduring role of genetic factors in type 1 diabetes susceptibility and highlight the need to identify novel environmental triggers to explain the rising incidence.

Reference:

Wei Y, Andersson T, Liu S, Feychting M, Kuja-Halkola R, Carlsson S. Stable heritability of type 1 diabetes in a Swedish nationwide cohort study. Nat Commun. 2025;16:5327. doi:10.1038/s41467-025-60813-2.

License:

This episode is based on an open-access article published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/