Diabetes diagnosis: early, fast, accurate
Rapid test for juvenile diabetes
Vladimir Fradkin, Deutsche WelleDiabetes mellitus of the first type is detected, as a rule, when the insulin-producing cells have already been destroyed.
Now scientists have developed a method for early diagnosis of the disease.
Although diabetes mellitus is not an infectious disease, today we can safely talk about a genuine epidemic that has engulfed industrialized countries. However, this primarily concerns the so-called type II diabetes mellitus, that is, that develops in old age and is closely associated with overweight, physical inactivity, smoking and other risk factors. Another thing is diabetes mellitus of the first type: it develops, as a rule, in childhood or adolescence and has nothing to do with an unhealthy lifestyle, but it is, albeit not so widespread, but a much more severe form of endocrine disease.
Type I diabetes mellitus, also known as juvenile, juvenile or adolescent diabetes, is characterized by the destruction of the very beta cells of the pancreas that produce insulin. And since this hormone is the most important regulator of carbohydrate metabolism and the only one capable of lowering blood glucose levels, the destruction of beta cells leads to insulin deficiency, requiring at least lifelong insulin therapy, that is, regular administration of the hormone from the outside into the body. Needless to say, what suffering this means for children and adolescents!
The problem is compounded by the fact that until now, it has usually been possible to diagnose this disease only when its symptoms have fully manifested, which means that beta cells have already been almost completely destroyed. And now a group of German researchers, together with colleagues from the USA and Finland, have proposed a technique that allows, based on a blood test, to diagnose the disease long before it manifested itself.
Specific antibodies as diagnostic markersThe fact is that type I diabetes is an autoimmune disease, and the destruction of beta cells is caused by the patient's own immune system, which takes them for foreign tissue.
In this case, specific antibodies are formed – usually of four varieties. It is these antibodies in the patient's blood that scientists have tried to use as diagnostic markers. Professor Anette-Gabriele Ziegler, director of the Institute for the Study of Diabetes at the Helmholtz German Research Center for Health and the Environment in Munich, says: "We wanted to find out two things: when exactly these antibodies occur, and whether all children in whose blood the antibodies are present get diabetes."
To do this, we used data from a unique study in terms of scale: scientists from three countries regularly examined no less than almost 14 thousand children, and did it from the moment the child was born until he reached the age of 20. The results were extremely interesting, says Professor Ziegler: "We found, firstly, that the production of these antibodies - the so–called seroconversion – begins very early, usually in the first two years of life. And, secondly, that if a child has antibodies of at least two varieties in his blood, he will almost certainly get diabetes. Someone will have the disease in a few months, someone – in 10 years. But all children, without exception, in whose blood antibodies of at least two varieties are detected, will certainly get diabetes in the next 20 years."
Early diagnosis will significantly improve the situationThe test gave reliable results regardless of whether the child had a genetic predisposition to diabetes or not, heredity played no role here.
That is, a blood test for the presence of these antibodies makes it possible to detect type I diabetes with high reliability long before the appearance of obvious symptoms of the disease, even at a time when beta cells are functioning normally.
This opens up new possibilities for therapy, says Professor Ziegler: "We are very actively working on both vaccinations and other sparing immunotherapies designed to slow down the development of the disease. By vaccinations, I mean using the very antigens that cause such a devastating immune response as a kind of vaccine. We expect an effect similar to the so-called desensitization used for the treatment of allergic diseases. Our goal is to try to "outwit" the immune system and make it more tolerant to these antigens."
According to the researcher, such a test should be included in the program of a standard mandatory preventive examination of children: "This disease is very often detected too late, and then children have extremely severe, sometimes life-threatening endocrine disorders. There are also cases of death. And early diagnosis, of course, will significantly improve the situation."
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru11.09.2013