Diabetes, a new non-autoimmune form discovered in young Africans

Many children and young adults from sub-Saharan Africa who have been diagnosed with diabetes type 1 may have a different form of the disease, not caused by the immune system. This discovery, the result of the research by an international team of researchers and published today in Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, it could change the how diabetes is diagnosed, treated, and managed across the region, paving the way for more accurate care and better results. Researchers enrolled 894 participants with diabetes young people from three African countries: Cameroon, Uganda and South Africa. The results were compared with similar studies. conducted in the United States on the same age group. "This is of a truly unique and important opportunity to explore heterogeneity of type 1 diabetes across countries and racial groups who live in very different environments," explains Dana Dabelea, co-author of the study and professor emeritus at the University of the Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Researchers found that 65% of young people from sub-Saharan Africa diagnosed with type 1 diabetes showed the typical markers of the disease in his blood (the autoantibodies against pancreatic islets), usually found in other parts of the world. Autoantibodies help distinguish type 1 diabetes from other forms, such as type 2 or monogenic diabetes, which have different causes and treatments. "This suggests that many young people in this region have a completely shape different from T1D and which is not of autoimmune origin", he Dabelea stated. Comparing these data with US studies, the researchers found that a smaller percentage, but significant (15%), of black American patients with diabetes Type 1 showed a similar shape to that found in Africa: absence of autoantibodies and low genetic risk, "suggesting a potential ancestral or genetic link,” Dabelea notes.