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New Diabetes Tests Pinpoint Those At-Risk

Researchers have found that a panel of blood markers can identify people who have the greatest risk of developing Type 1 diabetes, opening new avenues in the search for ways to prevent the disease. Type 1 diabetes is the form treated with regular doses of insulin and that often begins in childhood. Dr. Massimo Pietropaolo of the Diabetes Institute at Children's Hospital and his colleagues examined previously stored blood samples from almost 1,500 immediate relatives of patients diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

Researchers tried to identify the family members with the highest risk by testing them for antibodies to islet cells, the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. Newer tests use other biochemical markers of an ongoing antibody attack against the body's own tissue, called an autoimmune reaction. A combination of both kinds of tests proved to reveal the most about risk, the researchers found.

In general, close relatives of people with Type 1 diabetes are thought to have about a 5 percent risk of developing the disease. But those whose blood tested positive for biochemical markers of two kinds of autoantibodies had a 14 percent risk of developing Type I diabetes within 10 years.

A person with those two markers and islet cell antibodies had an 80 percent chance of developing Type 1 diabetes after 6.7 years. Family members with a certain type of islet cell antibody got diabetes sooner according to Dr. Pietropaolo. It's not yet known what that antibody is attacking.