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and the Dutch Diabetes Foundation. Special thanks to the general practitioners and pharmacists in the Ommoord district for their contributions to the Rotterdam Study and to the general practitioners in the Erasmus Rucphen Family (ERF) region for their contributions to the ERF study. Erasmus University and the Departments of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Clinical Genetics provided fi nancial support for the publication of this thesis. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission of the author or, when appropriate, of the scientifi c journal in which parts of this book have been published.