You can blame poor lifestyle choices for the rapid worldwide increase in type 2 diabetes, but what about a similar rise in the less common and more serious type 1, formerly known as “juvenile” diabetes? A study from an Israel Prize laureate suggests that a virus could be triggering the autoimmune disease before birth.
In a recent paper (published in Diabetic Medicine, Prof. Zvi Laron, director of the Endocrinology and Diabetes Research Unit at Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel, and head of the WHO Collaborating Center for the Study of Diabetes in Youth, presents evidence that a viral infection during pregnancy may spark the development of Type 1 diabetes in the mother’s genetically susceptible fetus.
He and international research collaborators from Israel (including the Hadassah Medical Organization), the University of Washington and Sweden’s Lund University tested 107 healthy pregnant women for islet cell autoantibodies — a sign of diabetes that appears years before initial symptoms show up. They also tested for anti-rotavirus and anti-CoxB3 antibodies.
The results pointed to evidence that viral infections contracted during pregnancy caused damage to the pancreas of the mother and/or the fetus. In their test subjects, they saw specific antibodies including those affecting the pancreatic cells producing insulin.
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