Diabetes in a Pair of Identical Twins

Abstract

We report an unusual pair of identical twins. Jennifer B. developed diabetes at the age of four and has been on insulin ever since. She is now aged thirty and has several complications of the disease. Shireen B., her twin, was found, immediately after appendectomy at the age of eight, to have glycosuria, and glucose tolerance was highly abnormal. She was put on insulin, but soon ceased toneed it and another glucose tolerance test after fifteen days was normal. Twenty-two years later, when thirty-seven weeks pregnant, and three and six months postpartum, she was tested again, withglucose tolerance test and insulin assay. The glucose tolerance tests were normal; the insulin response was slightly abnormal. These findings together with those in a larger series of twins do not tend to suggest that diabetes will develop in all identical twins of diabetics.