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Background: Incidence of type 1 diabetes varies widely around the world, probably due to ethnic differences across populations among other factors., Aims: To determine whether there is an association between disease and ancestry proportions; and to control disease-HLA associations for possible confounding by admixture or population stratification., Subjects and Methods: 100 cases and 129 controls participated in the study. Ancestry informative markers, which have considerable differences in frequency between European, West African and Native American populations were used. Type 1 diabetes associated HLA susceptibility/protection alleles were ascertained by PCR using specific primers. Statistical analyses were conducted using STRUCTURE 2.1, ADMIXMAP 3.7, SPSS 16.0 and STRAT 1.0 packages., Results: The results of logistic regression implemented in ADMIXMAP 3.7 indicated that European ancestry was associated with type 1 diabetes mellitus with an odds ratio of 5.7 corresponding to one unit change in European admixture proportion. Association was found between HLA alleles and disease, DQA1*0501, *0301 DQB1*0201 and DRB1*0301, *0401 being susceptibility alleles and DRB1*1501, DQA1*0102/3 and DQB1*0602 being protective alleles., Conclusions: We found an association between European ancestry and type 1 diabetes in our sample, indicating the contribution of ethnicity to incidence differences. Previously reported associations of HLA DR/DQ alleles with disease are confirmed for the admixed Cuban population.

Background: Recent studies suggest that celiac disease (CD) is common in many developing countries. Because the disease may be under diagnosed in Cuba, we studied the presence of the disease in a group of apparently healthy adult., Aims/hypothesis: It was to assess for the first time, the presence of silent CD in a cohort of healthy Cuban adults individuals and to evaluate the tools for diagnosis of CD in this group., Methods: A total of 200 healthy Cuban adult from Havana City were evaluated. Tissue transglutaminase antibodies (tTGA) were determined by one-step immunochromatographic assay and by commercial ELISA kit. CD specific human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing was performed by polymerase chain reaction amplification, using sequence-specific primers. In the subject positive for tTGA, the CD was confirmed by intestinal biopsy., Results: From the 200 studied individuals, only one subject was identified as positive by both assays, being submitted to duodenal biopsy. Morphological changes consistent with CD were found and also supported by HLA-DQ2 (HLA-DQA1*0501-DQB1*02). In the follow-up after one year, histological recovery was assessed by a second intestinal biopsy and the serological marker became negative., Conclusions: This study confirms the existence of silent CD among healthy adult in Cuba and highlights the importance of mass screening for this disease among them. The one-step immunochromatographic assay is a good tool for this purpose.