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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Apr 15, 2015; 6(3): 380-390
Published online Apr 15, 2015. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v6.i3.380
Type 1 diabetes: A predictable disease
Kimber M Simmons, Aaron W Michels
Kimber M Simmons, Aaron W Michels, Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, CO 80045, United States
Author contributions: Simmons KS and Michels AW contributed to this paper.
Supported by Grants from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases, No. R01 DK032083, K08 DK095995; Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Children’s Diabetes Foundation, and the Brehm Coalition.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors have no conflicts-of-interest relevant to this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Aaron W Michels, MD, Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, University of Colorado Denver, Mail Stop A140, 1775 Aurora Court, Aurora, CO 80045, United States. aaron.michels@ucdenver.edu
Telephone: +1-303-7241923 Fax: +1-303-7246784
Received: September 11, 2014
Peer-review started: September 11, 2014
First decision: November 14, 2014
Revised: November 26, 2014
Accepted: January 9, 2015
Article in press: January 12, 2015
Published online: April 15, 2015
Processing time: 221 Days and 2.4 Hours
Abstract

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease characterized by loss of insulin producing beta cells and reliance on exogenous insulin for survival. T1D is one of the most common chronic diseases in childhood and the incidence is increasing, especially in children less than 5 years of age. In individuals with a genetic predisposition, an unidentified trigger initiates an abnormal immune response and the development of islet autoantibodies directed against proteins in insulin producing beta cells. There are currently four biochemical islet autoantibodies measured in the serum directed against insulin, glutamic decarboxylase, islet antigen 2, and zinc transporter 8. Development of islet autoantibodies occurs before clinical diagnosis of T1D, making T1D a predictable disease in an individual with 2 or more autoantibodies. Screening for islet autoantibodies is still predominantly done through research studies, but efforts are underway to screen the general population. The benefits of screening for islet autoantibodies include decreasing the incidence of diabetic ketoacidosis that can be life threatening, initiating insulin therapy sooner in the disease process, and evaluating safe and specific therapies in large randomized clinical intervention trials to delay or prevent progression to diabetes onset.

Keywords: Autoimmunity; Autoantibodies; Diabetes prevention; Screening; Type 1 diabetes

Core tip: Type 1 diabetes (T1D), the immune mediated form of diabetes, is now a predictable disease with the measurement of islet autoantibodies. The presence of two or more antibodies defines preclinical disease as nearly everyone with multiple antibodies progresses to clinical diabetes. With improved platforms to measure islet autoantibodies, screening the general population is now a goal. Early identification of preclinical diabetes allows for less diabetic ketoacidosis, early initiation of insulin therapy, and the potential to delay or prevent diabetes onset. Clinical trials using safe and specific therapies to block disease specific immune cells are underway in T1D.