Research has offered up six further genetic variants involved in type 2 diabetes, with one of these new variants also appearing to be implicated as a cause of prostate cancer.

The findings bring the total number of genetic risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes up to 16.

An international multi-group collaboration of 40 centres in Europe and North America assessed combined genetic data from more than 70,000 people.

Genetic variant JAZF1 was found to contain a separate variant linked to prostate cancer and is the second gene that appears to play a role in both conditions.

The findings may have important implications for the future design of drugs for both prostate cancer and diabetes.

Senior author Mark McCarthy from the University of Oxford explained that none of the genes found was previously "on the radar screen" of diabetes researchers.

"Each of these genes, therefore, provides new clues to the processes that go wrong when diabetes develops, and each provides an opportunity for the generation of new approaches for treating or preventing this condition," he said.

Further research into genetic variant JAZF1 linked to type 2 diabetes and prostate cancer also needs to be untaken, researchers stressed.

The research is published in the advanced online edition of Nature Genetics.

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