Parallel clinical course of diabetes in a husband and wife with type 2 diabetes

A 50‐year‐old South Asian man was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes on a routine test. He found his wife to have diabetes shortly afterwards. Baseline clinical findings at diagnosis were similar in the husband and wife. Over the course of the next seven years, there was a remarkable similarity in the clinical course of the spouses' glycaemic control, blood pressure control, weight and, most recently, the onset of microvascular complications. This is the first report of such marked similarity in the clinical course of diabetes in spouses, and suggests that environmental factors may be important in the progression of type 2 diabetes. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.