Children with type 1 diabetes have a greater incidence of enterovirus infections before experiencing autoimmune processes that lead to metabolic disease, according to a study that has been published in Diabetology.
Enterovirus have been linked to type 1 diabetes in studies that show a greater frequency of these blood viruses and the pancreas of diabetic individuals and positive autoantibodies.However, this association has not been appreciated in all works.
In the new study one of the broadest ones to date, a team led by Heikki Hyoty and Hanna Honkanen, from the University of Tampere (Finland), analyzed whether the presence of integer in feces was related to the appearance of autoimmunity against thepancreatic islets.This evaluation has been carried out within the framework of the prediction and prevention study of type 1 diabetes, with Finnish population.
difference between cases and controls
The researchers collected 1,673 fecal samples of 129 children who developed acting in front of the pancreatic islets and another 3.108 samples of 282 minors that served as controls.In all of them, the presence of Enterovirus RNA was investigated, which led to the diagnosis of 108 infections in the 129 children with autoimmunity and 169 in the 282 controls during the monitoring period, which is an average of 0.8 against 0,6 infections per child, respectively.This difference was also appreciated in the infections that occurred before the appearance of autoantibodies (0.6 compared to 0.4 infections per child).
The analyzes that were carried out later showed that the excess of infections that were appreciated in the children predisposed to the development of type 1 diabetes occurred more than 12 months before the first positive blood sample was obtained to autoantibodies.During that period of time, an average of 0.62 infections between these children were diagnosed, compared to 0.33 between the controls, which corresponds to 6.3 and 2.1 infections in the 10 years of follow -up.In other words: children with type 1 diabetes had triple infections than the rest.
The authors comment that their study reveals that enterovirus infections in the pediatric population "are associated with the appearance of autoantibodies in front of the pancreatic islets after approximately one year. This finding agrees with the previous observations of other prospective studies that suggest thatEnterovirus infections could play a role at the beginning of the beta cell deterioration process. "
On the other hand, they point out the interest of "exploring the possibility of creating a vaccine against these viruses in order to prevent type 1 diabetes."
