As per a recent report by a team of biologists at Iceland’s Decode Genetics Inc, a comprehensive track down of the roots of a number of common diseases, like diabetes and cancer, has revealed that the genetic risk of these diseases depends on whether a DNA variant has been inherited from the father or the mother.

The findings of the study, which seek to partly explain the yawning gap in understanding the genetics of common diseases, were based on the study of an extensive lineage that included nearly the entire present population of Iceland and many in preceding generations.

Making use of the genealogy, the researchers at DeCode Genetics were able to clearly tell apart the chromosomes that came from the father and those that came from the mother in almost
40,000 people.

The researchers found mutations in five disease-linked genes that only become effective if inherited from a particular parent.

About the inheritance of the type-2 diabetes variant, the researchers said: “If an individual inherits the type-2 diabetes variant from the father, the variant increases risk of diabetes by more than
30% compared to those who inherit the non diabetes-linked version. If inherited maternally, the variant lowers risk by more than 10%.”

Similarly, the risk of breast cancer increases if the particular gene is inherited from the father; as did the risk of the gradually-growing skin cancer, basal-cell carcinoma, if the associated gene comes from the father.