Researchers Introduce New Test to Identify Children Who Are Likely to Develop Type 1 Diabetes

A new method of predicting which babies are likely to develop type 1 diabetes has moved one step closer to routine testing for babies who could avoid complications, which can be life-threatening.

According to a study entitled, The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young or TEDDY, researchers at seven international sites have observed more than 7,700 children who were at risk of acquiring type 1 diabetes since they were born for nine consecutive years.

Additionally, this particular study is financially backed by the United States Centers for Disease Control and the US National Institutes of Health, and the JDRF charity.

In this study, published in Nature Medicine, researchers used the data from TEDDY to develop a process of merging numerous factors that could impact if a child is possible to have type 1 diabetes.

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Combined Risk Score Method

A method which the researchers described as a combined risk score combines genetics, clinical aspects like a family history of diabetes, and their count of islet autoantibodies-biomarkers, that are known to be associated with type 1 diabetes.

The team of researchers found out that a newly incorporated method dramatically enhanced the forecast of which children are likely to develop type 1 diabetes, possibly consenting better diabetes risk counseling of families.

More substantially, the new method doubled the efficacy of programs for screening babies to stop the possibly fatal occurrence of ketoacidosis, a result of type 1 diabetes in which insufficiency or inadequacy makes the blood turn very acidic.

Determining which newborns are at highest risk, according to the research, will benefit as well, clinical tests on medicines that show potential in terms of stopping such occurrence of the condition.

Present Percentage of Children with Type 1 Diabetes

According to the University of Exeter Medical School's Dr. Lauric Ferrat, presently, 40 percent of children diagnosed with the said diabetes type, have a serious ketoacidosis condition.

Dr. Ferrat also said that for those who are very young, such a condition is life-threatening, leading to long intensive confinement at hospitals, and in certain situations, even paralysis or fatality.

Using the new combined method can help determine which newborns are likely to have diabetes can stop such tragedies, and guarantee that children are on the right pathway of treatment earlier in their life. This, the medical expert said, means better health.

Pacific Northwest Institute professor William Hagopian said that they are excited about their research finding. 

Because of this, he said, they propose that the babies' routine heel prick administered at birth, could go a long way towards prevention of illness and the forecast on which children are possible to have type 1 diabetes years after.

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Putting the Work to the Test in a Washington State Trial

The professor explained that they are currently putting their work to the test in a trial in Washington State. He elaborated that they are hoping their research will eventually be utilized globally to detect the condition as early as possible and to control initiatives to stop the disease.

Scientists trust that the combined method can be rolled out to forecast the beginning of other illnesses with a strong hereditary component, detectable during childhood, like the celiac illness, for one.

According to the Vice President of Research at JDRF, Sanjoy Dutta, they know that, as genetics present a strong connection as a risk factor for the family members to develop diabetes, the majority of the newly diagnosed people do not have an identified family history.

JDRF has been discovering the non-hereditary, ecological risk factors, activating type 1 diabetes to help in the development of treatments to forecast and avoid the onset of such an illness.

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