In the new survey, scientists provided strong evidence that the development of type I diabetes is associated with the infection of enterirus.
The assumption that an entheroviral infection could cause type I diabetes is related to a report published in 1969, the authors of which linked the disease to a recent infection of an enterirus called Coxaki V. Since then, biologists have published several different studies based on this theory, but the results have been contradictory.
In 2011, a group of scientists conducted a study that focused on modern molecular testing techniques and identified a clinically significant link between enterirus infection and type I diabetes.
A new study, which has not yet been reviewed and published, but was recently presented at the annual meeting of the European Diabetes Association, was carried out by the same group of scientists, who updated the results of 2011 to include more data and advanced molecular diagnostics.
In the new work, biologists used data from 60 controlled maintenance studies covering some 12,000 people, and in general, Type I diabetes mellitus patients were eight times more likely to have traces of entheroviral infection.
The study showed that in the first month following diagnosis, patients were 16 times more likely to find signs of enterirus infection; the connection was even stronger for people with a genetic predisposition to type I diabetes or for relatives with the disease.
The problem is that there are a lot of enterirus, and there are now more than 80 different types of disease in humans.
In previous studies, scientists often focused on a sub-group of enterirus known as Coxaki B. There are six types of enterirus Coxaki B, and researchers have estimated that this group could account for a quarter of all enterirus infections.
A team of researchers in Europe has already developed a single vaccine designed to combat all six Coxaki entheroviruses. It is now being tested in humans. The goal is to create a vaccine that reduces the risk of Type I diabetes in children.
The results of the new study to some extent confirm the link between Coxaki B and diabetes, but scientists noted during the presentation that the new results did not suggest that entheroviral infections were the only cause of type I diabetes. Other factors are required to trigger the virus to develop the disease.
Type I sugar diabetes is a chronic disease that affects a person's ability to process food glucose for energy production. In most cases, type I diabetes mellitus is detected at an early age.
The disease develops when the immune system attacks pancreas cells that produce insulin, a hormone that helps convert glucose into the energy needed by the cells of the body. Therefore, people with type I diabetes mellitus need daily insulin injections.