Study identifies possible protective blood factors against Type 2 diabetes

Each component of the IGF axis (IGF-1 and IGFBP-1, -2, and -3) had a significant independent association with diabetes risk – most notably IGFBP-1 and -2. Compared with women in the bottom 20 percent with respect to their levels of IGFBP-1, having high levels of IGFBP-1 (top 20 percent) was associated with a three-fold reduction in risk for diabetes, while high levels of IGFBP-2 were associated with a more than five-fold reduction in diabetes risk.