“We've known for some time that Type 1 diabetes cannot be explained by genetics alone and that other environmental triggers may also play a part.” – Dr Iain Frame, Director of Research at Diabetes UK.
The researchers from the Peninsula Medical School in the South West, the University of Brighton and the Department of Pathology at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, discovered that there is a link between type 1 diabetes and enteroviruses (common virus that enter via gastrointestinal tract).
Enteroviruses infections are more common among newly diagnosed T1D and pre-diabetic patients than in the general population. The symptoms that caused by enteroviruses are such as common cold or vomiting and diarrhea. However, the beta cells with enteroviruses infection might be recognised by the immune system as 'foreign', thus triggering type 1 diabetes.
Professor Noel Morgan at the Peninsula Medical School provides this evidence in this new study. The researchers compared the tissue samples in pancreases of young people with type 1 diabetes to the tissue samples of non-diabetes young people. They found that there was enteroviral infection in most of the beta cells of young people with type 1 diabetes.
The study suggests that type 1 diabetes can be prevented from developing, by creating a vaccine against these viruses. However, there are many different types of enterovirus. Therefore, more research is needed to determine whether it would be possible to create just such a vaccine.
Professor Noel Morgan added: "The next stages of research are to identify which enteroviruses are involved, and able to know how the beta-cells are changed by infection before reaching the ultimate goal to develop an effective vaccine. We hope this will drastically reduce the number of cases of type 1 diabetes around the world.”
The research is published on March 2009 in Diabetologia.
Sources:
http://jdrf.org.au/news/view/type-1-diabetes-linked-to-virus-infection
http://www.childrenfirst.nhs.uk/families/news/2009/march6.html
