The development of type 1 diabetes can be predicted, suggests new research, by measuring the presence of auto-antibodies in the blood. This way, doctors could say whether the immune system has begun to break down the body’s own insulin cells.
Funded by the US National Institutes of Health, the study involved 8,600 children from Sweden, United States, Germany and Finland, that have an increased hereditary risk of type 1 diabetes, detected at birth through tests on blood from the umbilical cord.
According to the researchers, antibodies are part of the body’s immune system and the presence of antibodies in the blood is a sign that the immune system has reacted to an intruder such as a virus or a bacteria and sometimes the immune system mutinies and attacks the body. Auto-antibodies are a sign of an autoimmune disease and form markers indicating that an attack is underway, for example on the body’s own insulin cells.
The findings show that there are three ways to predict the development of type 1 diabetes: if the auto-antibody first discovered attacks insulin, if the first auto-antibody targets GAD65 (GADA), a protein inside the insulin-producing cells, and if both auto-antibodies are first found together.
Of the participating children, 6.5 percent had their first auto-antibody before the age of six. In 44 percent of cases, children only had an auto-antibody against insulin by the age of 1–2. Also, in 38 percent of cases, GAD65 auto-antibodies (GADA) were detected and the numbers increased until the age of two, while in 14 percent of cases both auto-antibodies were found at the same time, with a peak at the age of 2–3.
The hereditary risk of type 1 diabetes determined which auto-antibody the children had, but it is still not known what causes the immune system to start attacking the body’s own insulin cells. One theory is that a viral infection could be the trigger, with two different diseases involved.