Early type 1 diabetes detection markers identified

Thu, 01 Oct 2009
According to recent reports, new markets for the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes have been identified by diabetes experts. Scientists at the Diabetes Research Group at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and another university, Technische Universitat Munchen, found specific zinc transporter variants amongst children with a particular risk of diabetes development .

According to the report, some 11,000 children with diabetes living in Germany are affected. Many children are not diagnosed until the age of eight and a half, meaning that they are aready affected by the complications .

Dr. Peter Achenback was reported in diabetes news as commenting: "Acute severe complications such as diabetic coma at disease onset can thus be avoided in the majority of the children. Autoantibodies to ZnT8 in combination with a specific variant of the zinc transporter gene were associated with an elevated diabetes risk . Eighty-one percent of these children with ZnT8 antibodies developed diabetes mellitus . A heightened diabetes risk has long been associated with the islet autoantibodies. These include the autoantibodies to insulin (IAA), islet cell antibodies to the enzyme glutamate decarboxylase (GADA) and to tyrosine phosphatases (IA-2A and IA-2ß)."

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