Researchers find vital clue in the progression of Type 1 diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is a disease in which the body mistakenly attacks itself as the immune system destroys the pancreas’s insulin-producing cells.
Why the immune system turns against these cells remains one of the enduring questions in diabetes research. Scientists have clues, some developing theories, but no single answer.
Now, researchers at the University of Florida’s Diabetes Institute have added an important piece of the puzzle. In a new study, researchers found that the smallest collections of insulin-producing beta cells, as well as single cells scattered throughout the pancreas, are the first to die as the immune system launches its assault.
This is thought to occur even before someone with diabetes exhibits symptoms.
The loss of these cells appears to be a harbinger of the next phase of Type 1 diabetes, when the immune system begins to destroy the larger and more significant collections of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. These clusters of cells are called the islets of Langerhans.
“We did not expect that,” said the study’s senior author, Clive H. Wasserfall, Ph.D., a researcher at the UF Diabetes Institute. “And we can only speculate as to why that would be. This leads to a place where, if we can save these remaining bigger islets of Langerhans, perhaps one day we could prevent or delay the disease from happening.”
Understanding the disease’s progression, Wasserfall said, provides the scaffolding for strategies to combat the disorder even as a cure remains a distant hope.
The finding might also one day help doctors detect Type 1 diabetes earlier, allowing for quicker intervention to slow its progression.