UF Health-led guidelines call for widespread Type 1 diabetes screening in children

A University of Florida Health physician-scientist led an international team of Type 1 diabetes experts who recently developed new treatment guidelines emphasizing wider screening for the disease among children and adolescents in the general population before symptoms arise.

That would include screening the young relatives of those with Type 1 diabetes, such as siblings, because they are at higher genetic risk of developing diabetes.

The effort was led by Michael Haller, M.D., chief of pediatric endocrinology in the UF College of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and a member of the UF Diabetes Institute.

The guidelines cover screening, staging, and strategies to preserve beta cell function in children and adolescents with Type 1 diabetes. They were published last month in the journal Hormone Research in Paediatrics and are issued under the umbrella of the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes, or ISPAD.