Abundant evidence suggests that cytokines involve in the pathogenesis of latent autoimmune diabetes of adults (LADA). This is a slowly progressive form of type 1 diabetes, which is initially diagnosed as type 2 diabetes. In this study, healthy individuals LADA and type 2 diabetic patients were genotyped for IL-6-174G/C, TNF-alpha-308A/G, TGF-beta1-codon10T/C, TGF-beta1-codon25G/C, IL-10-1082A/G, IL-10-819T/C, IL-10-592A/C gene polymorphisms, by sequence-specific-primer polymerase chain reaction methodology. A significant difference in the frequencies of -1082A/G IL-10 alleles was observed, with the -1082*A allele (known to be associated with low IL-10 production), predominating in LADA diabetics than type 2 diabetics (p=0.036). No significant differences of genotypes, phenotypes, or haplotype frequencies in the remaining cytokine polymorphisms were observed. Analysis of allele combinations revealed a significant involvement of the low and high in vitro production IL-10 alleles in the development of LADA and type 2 diabetes, respectively. These results suggest that the G/A mutation at position -1082 of IL-10 promoter gene region might be one of the factors participating to the pathogenesis of LADA diabetes and that identification of cytokine gene polymorphisms might contribute to the characterization of the different types of diabetes mellitus.