In January 2024 the Dutch Diabetes Foundation (Diabetesfonds) has awarded SiA researcher Mariëtte Boon (Erasmus MC) with a Senior Fellowship. This grant enables important diabetes research in the Netherlands. With the aim of generating more knowledge and developing new treatments for people with diabetes.  The Diabetes Foundation considers talented researchers very important for scientific research. For that reason, five researchers have received fellowship grants.

Mariëtte’s research focuses on the role of stress hormones in type 2 diabetes. Your chances of developing type 2 diabetes can be influenced by your ethnicity. For example, people of Hindustani descent are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. Mariëtte Boon studies the causation of this phenomenon by looking at stress hormones.

Hindustani people have more belly fat – from a young age and due to natural predisposition – than Europeans, which could be a cause of a higher rate of diabetes in this group of people. People of Hindustani origin are often less sensitive to the hormone insulin. Mariëtte’s research will look at hormones of the stress system (such as cortisol) and whether they trigger this.

She will compare hormones of the stress system of people of Hindustani and European descent. Moreover, she will examine slim people and severely overweight people. She will study the amount of hormones in the blood and the daily rhythm of hormones. She also looks at hormone receptors in body fat.

The aim of the research is to develop new treatments for type 2 diabetes for people of Hindustani origin. The objective is to ensure that the treatments are a good match for the exact causes of type 2 diabetes in people of this ethnicity.

More information can be found on the Dutch website of Diabetes Fonds: Onderzoek diabetes type 2 bij Hindostanen – Diabetes Fonds