Cornell University Jul 4 2025 A new Cornell University study brings additional clarity to the relationship between Type 2 diabetes and genes that express a salivary enzyme that breaks down starch. It was previously known that people with more copies of the genes that express salivary amylase (called AMY1) produce more salivary amylase enzyme. The new paper, published in PLOS One , supports the idea that having more copies of the AMY1 gene may be protective against Type 2 diabetes, though