Plasma Fetuin-A Levels and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes.

Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetology, Nephrology, Vascular Disease and Clinical Chemistry, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. Objective: The liver-secreted protein fetuin-A induces insulin resistance in animals and circulating fetuin-A is elevated in insulin resistance and fatty liver in humans. We investigated whether plasma fetuin-A levels predict the incidence of type 2 diabetes in a large prospective, population-based study. Research Design and Methods: A case-cohort study within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam study comprising 27,548 subjects was designed. We randomly selected a subcohort of 2,500 individuals of whom 2,164 were diabetes-free at baseline and had anamnestic, anthropometrical and metabolic data for analysis. Of the... [read full story]