(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
