Study of Familial Patterns of Reported Diabetes: Evaluation of Questionnaire Data

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Abstract
This study is based on a family history survey for diabetes obtained by questionnaire from 31,046 students who entered the University of Minnesota during the academic years 1955-56 to 1959-60. For each individual reported in the questionnaire, the primary item of information obtained was the diabetes status, classified where possible according to parental mating group (i.e., both parents diabetic, one parent diabetic, neither parent diabetic). Data adequate for testing the correlation of diabetes prevalence in offspring of parental mating groups with the number of diabetic parents 2 and for testing single-gene genetic hypotheses was collected. The initial data on "reported diabetes" is subject to some fairly gross errors of misclassification. There are, however, numerous familial patterns suggested by various tabulations of the data which are of some interest. The average number of offspring per family does not appear to be correlated with mating subgroup, nor does it appear to be correlated with the presence of diabetes among 1st degree relatives. Prevalence of diabetes appears to be positively correlated with the number of diabetic parents. In fact, the observed prevalence in families with 1 diabetic parent is about 3 times the prevalence in families with neither parent affected. This effect appears to persist even when the data are subclassified by parental age. Mortality rates do not appear to be correlated with the number of diabetic parents. Sources of error inherent in the present study, in particular, and the retrospective questionnaire-based study, in general, are extensively analyzed and discussed.