Family history of diabetes and risk of SARS-COV-2 in UK Biobank: A prospective cohort study.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to determine risk of being SARS-CoV-2 positive and severe infection (associated with hospitalization/mortality) in those with family history of diabetes. METHODS: We used UK Biobank, an observational cohort recruited between 2006 and 2010. We compared the risk of being SARS-CoV-2 positive and severe infection for those with family history of diabetes (mother/father/sibling) against those without. RESULTS: Of 401,268 participants in total, 13,331 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and 2282 had severe infection by end of January 2021. In unadjusted models, participants with ≥2 family members with diabetes were more likely to be SARS-CoV-2 positive (risk ratio-RR 1.35; 95% confidence interval-CI 1.24-1.47) and severe infection (RR 1.30; 95% CI 1.04-1.59), compared to those without. The excess risk of being tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 was attenuated but significant after adjusting for demographics, lifestyle factors, multimorbidity and presence of cardiometabolic conditions. The excess risk for severe infection was no longer significant after adjusting for demographics, lifestyle factors, multimorbidity and presence of cardiometabolic conditions, and was absent when excluding incident diabetes. CONCLUSION: The totality of the results suggests that good lifestyle and not developing incident diabetes may lessen risks of severe infections in people with a strong family of diabetes.

Sleep characteristics modify the association of genetic predisposition with obesity and anthropometric measurements in 119,679 UK Biobank participants.

Background: Obesity is a multifactorial condition influenced by genetics, lifestyle, and environment.Objective: We investigated whether the association of a validated genetic profile risk score for obesity (GPRS-obesity) with body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) was modified by sleep characteristics.Design: This study included cross-sectional data from 119,859 white European adults, aged 37-73 y, participating in the UK Biobank. Interactions of GPRS-obesity and sleep characteristics (sleep duration, chronotype, day napping, and shift work) with their effects on BMI and WC were investigated. Results: ß Values are expressed as the change in BMI (in kg/m2) or WC per 1-SD increase in GPRS-obesity. The GPRS-obesity was associated with BMI (ß: 0.57; 95% CI: 0.55, 0.60; P = 6.3 × 10-207) and WC (1.21 cm; 95% CI: 1.15, 1.28 cm; P = 4.2 × 10-289). There were significant interactions of GPRS-obesity and a variety of sleep characteristics with their relation with BMI (P-interaction < 0.05). In participants who slept <7 or >9 h daily, the effect of GPRS-obesity on BMI was stronger (ß: 0.60; 95% CI: 0.54, 0.65 and ß: 0.73; 95% CI: 0.49, 0.97, respectively) than in normal-length sleepers (7-9 h; ß: 0.52; 95% CI: 0.49, 0.55). A similar pattern was observed for shift workers (ß: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.59, 0.77 compared with ß: 0.54; 95% CI: 0.51, 0.58 for non-shift workers) and for night-shift workers (ß: 0.69; 95% CI: 0.56, 0.82 compared with ß: 0.55; 95% CI: 0.51, 0.58 for non-night-shift workers), for those taking naps during the day (ß: 0.65; 95% CI: 0.52, 0.78 compared with ß: 0.51; 95% CI: 0.48, 0.55 for those who never or rarely had naps), and for those with a self-reported evening chronotype (ß: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.61, 0.82 compared with ß: 0.52; 95% CI: 0.47, 0.57 for morning chronotype). Similar findings were obtained by using WC as the outcome.Conclusion: This study shows that the association between genetic risk for obesity and phenotypic adiposity measures is exacerbated by adverse sleeping characteristics.