New test better predicts which babies will develop type 1 diabetes

[Northerner]

A new approach to predicting which babies will develop type 1 diabetes moves a step closer to routine testing for newborns which could avoid life-threatening complications.

Scientists at seven international sites have followed 7,798 children at high risk of developing type 1 diabetes from birth, over nine years, in The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) Study. The TEDDY Study is a large international study funded primarily by the US National Institutes of Health and U.S. Centers for Disease Control, as well as by the charity JDRF.

In research published in Nature Medicine, scientists at the University of Exeter and the Pacific Northwest Research Institute in Seattle used the TEDDY data to develop a method of combining multiple factors that could influence whether a child is likely to develop type 1 diabetes. The combined risk score approach incorporates genetics, clinical factors such as family history of diabetes, and their count of islet autoantibodies -- biomarkers known to be implicated in type 1 diabetes.

New test better predicts which babies will develop type 1 diabetes

A new approach to predicting which babies will develop type 1 diabetes moves a step closer to routine testing for newborns which could avoid life-threatening complications.

www.sciencedaily.com

 

[mikeyB]

Well, fair enough, but once you have the information, how do you stop diabetes developing? It may produce benefit from the higher awareness of the possibility, but you can’t wrap infants in cotton wool, or protect them from all the potential infective triggers.

 

[Inka]

@mikeyB Yep. It’s worse than not knowing in a way as it would steal the joy from your child’s early years, waiting for the D to appear, wondering if every health issue was somehow related to burgeoning Type 1.

Until they have a cure, it’s better not to know maybe.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

There are UK studies looking at similar things, including genetic predisposition, and when and how then those get triggered.

I knew some people taking part in the family studies (children of T1 parents) and it certainly does throw up some ‘would you want to know’ questions.

In a sense, I think all T1 parents are always a bit ‘on their guard‘ when any of the tired, toilet, thirsty, thinner factors begin to present themselves in their kids.

Perhaps it would be helpful to be similarly aware if there were no T1 in the family, but the risk was lurking? Far too many kids get to death’s door before the penny finally drops and they get rushed in to dodge the DKA bullet.

 

[Thebearcametoo]

I think there are all sorts of downsides to this sort of knowledge (especially in countries where you pay for health insurance - I would imagine premiums would go up if a risk factor was shown even if that individual never went on to develop T1D) but in the specific case of trying to identify babies at risk and to avoid severe DKA then there’s merit to determining which babies are more at risk so the families can be given the information of what to look out for.

 

[Sally71]

My mum has T1 so I always knew that her descendants are at higher risk of developing it, I also knew the obvious signs to look out for, and still my daughter was going into DKA before we got her to hospital Partly because her decline was so subtle at first I thought I was imaging it or something, partly because I didn’t want to be a neurotic mum and take her to the doctor just because she might have something that I know a little bit about, and partly because when I did finally realise that there was definitely something wrong with her the GPs treated it as if it was completely non-urgent and might be nothing at all and made us wait several days for a blood test instead of just doing a finger prick, and I didn’t know enough to argue with them. Speaking to other parents of T1s I think it's quite common for people to miss the obvious symptoms. But I will always regret not taking her to the doctor a bit sooner