Detect type 1 diabetes before the first symptoms appear.That is what could be done thanks to four markers or blood antamantibodies that has identified a team from the University of Lund (Sweden), which would also allow to start the treatment much more early.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that, unlike type 2 diabetes, more associated with lifestyle and obesity, usually appears in childhood and is the result that the body is unable to produce insulin hormone.It occurs when beta cells in the pancreas are destroyed by autoantibodies and, therefore, the body can no longer produce insulin and cannot regulate blood sugar levels.
But now, thanks to the TEDDY study researchers, this situation could be prevented much earlier.As explained in the magazine "Diabetologia" researcher Ake Lernmark, the measurement of the levels of children in children's blood indicates if their immune system has begun to attack beta cells.Thus, this expert from the University of Lund explains that the autoantibodies appear years before the disease is diagnosed.
first years of life
The TEDDY study encompasses 8,600 children with an increase in the hereditary risk of type 1 diabetes of Sweden, USA, Germany and Finland.6.5% had their first autoantibodies before the age of six.Of these children, 44% had a autoantibody aimed at insulin, 38% had GAD65 autoantibodies before the two, and 14% had two autoantibodies at three years.
That is, he explains, «we have seen that the appearance of autoantibodies against insulin producing cells occurs during the first years of life, but the disease is not diagnosed until about ten years later.Now we know where to look to understand why these autoantibodies develop and what we should look for in the first years of life, ”he told Reuters Lernmark.Antibodies are proteins found in the blood.Its presence indicates that the immune system has attacked a foreign body.Autoantibodies indicate an autoimmune disease.That is, they suggest that the immune system attacks healthy or good cells, that is, those that are insulin producers.
Early treatment
The work reveals the triggering factors of type 1 diabetes in children at a much earlier stage of what was so far possible.The next step is to analyze all four -year -old children in Sweden."For the first time, researchers will be allowed to observe and study the mechanisms that trigger."
The new discovery could lead to an earlier treatment and will use lower insulin doses.It could even allow to postpone or avoid symptoms as the disease progresses.
Researchers still do not know why immune attacks on insulin producing cells are produced.Lernmark suggests that a virus can be responsible: «It is not yet known what makes the immune system begin to attack insulin producing cells themselves.So if we assume that there is a virus is responsible, the goal will be to make a vaccine against that virus ».