Small study offers hope for a diagnostic test some day, researchers say
WebMD News from HealthDay
By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, Feb. 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- In some young children who develop type 1 diabetes, a change in normal stomach bacteria can precede the disease by a year, a small study has found.
The findings, published Feb. 5 in the journal Cell, Host & Microbe, are based on just 33 children at increased genetic risk of type 1 diabetes. And experts stressed that it's too early to tell what it all could mean.
But one hope is that the results will lead to an early diagnostic test for type 1 diabetes, said researcher Aleksandar Kostic, a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
There is also the possibility of developing new therapies for type 1 that would target the "ecosystem" of the gut, he said.
But that would be a long way off, Kostic stressed. "These findings open up a promising new avenue for more research," he said. "But that's all we can say for now."
Type 1 diabetes differs from the much more common type 2 diabetes, which is often linked to older age and obesity. In type 1, the immune system mistakenly kills off pancreatic cells that make the blood-sugar-regulating hormone insulin. To survive, people with type 1 have to take frequent injections of insulin, or use an insulin pump, for the rest of their lives.
As many as 3 million Americans have type 1 diabetes, according to the JDRF (formerly Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), a New York-based organization that funds research into the disease. Often, the disease arises in childhood, but there are adult-onset cases, too.
Scientists do not know exactly what causes the abnormal immune reaction. But people who carry certain gene variants related to immune system function have a higher-than-normal risk of developing type 1 diabetes.
The new study followed 33 babies from Finland and Estonia who carried some of those gene variants. Kostic and his colleagues analyzed stool samples from the children to chart changes in the trillions of bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms that dwell in the gut -- what scientists call the "microbiome."
source : Change in Gut Bacteria May Precede Type 1 Diabetes in Kids
