(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Parents have a new reason to foster healthy lifestyle habits in their daughters.

British researchers who tested blood samples taken from umbilical cords found girls are born with a greater tendency for insulin resistance than boys. Insulin resistance is a key factor leading to the development of type 2 diabetes, a disease that’s increasing in prevalence among youngsters who are overweight or obese.
 

The study was sparked by research suggesting insulin resistance is different in boys and girls but cannot be adequately explained by differences in weight or physical activity levels. A previous study conducted among British and Indian children speculated the explanation may lie in the womb, leading investigators to test for insulin resistance on cord blood samples.

Even though girls weighed less than boys at birth, they had higher insulin and proinsulin concentrations and total proinsulin-to-insulin ratios in their cord blood. “As insulin is a principal growth factor in-utero, the higher insulin coupled with reduced growth in newborn girls suggests that girls are more insulin-resistant in-utero and after birth,” write the authors.

These findings, they continue, are “consistent with an intrinsic difference between the sexes, which is unlikely to be determined by environmental factors.”
 

SOURCE: Diabetes Care, 2007;30:2661-2666