Viral Infection Linked to Juvenile Diabetes
Reported May 25, 2010
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Italian researchers have found a link between enteroviral infection and diagnosis of type 1 diabetes in children.
Type 1 diabetes, also called juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a disorder of the body’s immune system. The patient’s own immune system is somehow activated to slowly destroy insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas until the patient’s body cannot produce insulin anymore. People diagnosed with type 1 diabetes require lifelong insulin therapy.
Approximately 13,000 young people are diagnosed in the U.S. each year. Type 1 diabetes develops in individuals who are genetically susceptible. An exposure to some yet unknown triggering environmental factor may be required.
“We studied the possible association of enterovirus infections with type 1 diabetes at time of diagnosis,” Antonio Toniolo, a researcher at the University of Insubria and Ospedale di Circolo in Verese, Italy, was quoted as saying. “Literature suggests that infection by different enteroviruses may be linked to the early stages of diabetes.”
Toniolo and colleagues tested the blood of 112 children at the time of time of diagnosis for the existence of enteroviral DNA. All the children, ranging in age from 2 to16 years, were patients at the Pediatric Endocrinology Units of Varese and Pisa. Low-level enteroviral infectivity and genome fragments were detected in 83 percent of type 1 diabetes patients, compared to 7 percent of healthy controls.
If similar results could be obtained in patient populations in other geographic areas, early enterovirus detection could help researchers identify other environmental factors that lead to type 1 diabetes and maybe one day develop innovative methods for prevention or treatment, said Toniolo.
“These data do not provide a causal relationship between enterovirus infections and diabetes,” warned Toniolo. “However, the high prevalence of enteroviral genome sequences in newly diagnosed type-1 diabetes cases indicate that different enterovirus types represent a significant biomarker of early stage juvenile diabetes.”
SOURCE: Presented at the General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, San Diego, California, May 24, 2010