A new vaccine to protect children with low glucose tolerance before an impending type 1 diabetes. Whether this is really possible, is now finally prove, inter alia, a study of the Technical University of Munich.
A type-1 diabetes develops when the immune system attacks a bad reaction in one’s own pancreas and destroys the insulin-producing cells. Due to an inflammatory reaction, which takes different lengths, the pancreas can no longer fulfill their function and diabetes becomes apparent. The onset of diabetes may last, depending on the injury, so that even ill babies or adults only. How it but at the slip of the immune system, so the exact cause of diabetes, occurs remains unclear.
Vaccination against type 1 diabetes?
If several relatives of a child have type 1 diabetes are affected, the genetic risk for the child greatly increases also suffer from diabetes too. Now by contrast, could potentially help the early administration of small doses of insulin as a kind of vaccination. Unlike type-1-Diabektikern with overt diabetes, the insulin for at-risk children do not serve to lower their blood sugar. It affects the immune system and prevent the fatal bad reaction to the pancreas in the long run. Two studies will now investigate in Austria, Italy, Britain, Canada, the USA and in Germany, how much insulin is suitable for the prevention and how it needs to be taken. The hormone could for example be administered in very small doses by mouth or as a nasal spray. When taken orally, insulin has no blood glucose-lowering effect, because it is ineffective by the stomach acid. With the hormone only children should be treated, although they are burdened with a high hereditary risk of diabetes, but still show no symptoms of the disease.
Who can participate in the prevention trial?
In Germany, experimental subjects aged 18 months to 7 years to be searched, where a family history is given with diabetes. Notes for a high risk of disease include pre-existing diabetes type 1 disease among siblings or their own parents. Before study participation, the individual risk of diabetes of the participating child is determined. The examinations and treatments during the studies are free of charge to participating families. The study is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research and the American Foundation for Diabetes Study. The study is called “pre-point” and is conducted in Germany by Professor Ezio Bonifacio at the TU Munich. For the 18-month study will be looking for a total of 40 children.
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