WELLINGTON, May 17 (Xinhuanet) -- New Zealand scientists have found the first clear proof of genetic variations that make Maori people more likely to get diabetes.

    A team led by Auckland University Professor Garth Cooper and doctoral student Nicola Poa has found three minor variations in one gene in 7 percent of Maori people with diabetes, but in only 1percent of Maori without the disease, reported the Auckland-based New Zealand Herald Monday.

    The team believed that further research will find other variations which will help to explain a sky-rocketing Maori rate of diabetes - one of the highest in the world.

    More than one in five (21.4 percent) Maori men over the age of 45 have diabetes, compared with 8.6 percent of European New Zealand men of the same age.

    Among women over 45, the rates are 13 percent for Maori and 7.5percent for European New Zealand women.

    "There are areas of New Zealand where upwards of half of older people have diabetes, such as parts of the East Coast," Dr. Cooperwas quoted as saying.

    Genetic variations programed from birth have long been suspected as among the causes of the discrepancy, along with lifestyle factors such as diet and lack of exercise. But no one has found the variations before.

    The newspaper report said similar variations have been found among diabetics in China, Japan, South Korea, China's Taiwan and various European countries. Dr. Cooper's study of 131 Maori patients with diabetes and 258 Maori people who do not have the disease has found two already-known variations, and two completelynew ones.

    One of the known variations turned out to have no effect on diabetes in Maori, because it was as common among those without diabetes as it was among those with the disease.

    The other three variations were found in nine of the 131 patients with diabetes (7 percent).

    Cooper said a bigger study of about 1000 Maori diabetics would be needed to confirm the findings. That would identify about 70 people with the genetic variations, and it would then be possible to test other members of their families to see if they also have the variations.

    He said the wider study would also look for other genetic variations affecting more than the initial 7 percent of Maori diabetics. Enditem