Genetics of diabetic cardiovascular disease: identification of a major susceptibility gene

Differential susceptibility to coronary artery disease in the diabetic patient cannot be entirely explained by conventional cardiac risk factors or by diabetes characteristics such as the degree of glycaemic control or diabetes duration. There is a growing awareness that there exist susceptibility genes for the development of diabetic vascular complications. In this review, I focus on one such genetic susceptibility factor encoded at the haptoglobin locus.