Children aged between three and 13 are set to be screened for Type 1 Diabetes.
It comes as part of a new trial that could, according to inews.co.uk, "transform the way the condition is identified and managed” at the early stages. The good news comes on World Diabetes Day (November 14) where up to 20,000 children and young teenagers will be included in the trial.
The Early Surveillance for Autoimmune Diabetes (Elsa) study, launching today, will screen blood to identify children that are likely to develop diabetes, allowing earlier diagnosis. In addition, those found to be high risk could be eligible for trials of immunotherapies to prevent or delay the condition and will be given guidance on how to manage it.
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According to the NHS, type 1 "causes the level of glucose (sugar) in your blood to become too high. It happens when your body cannot produce enough of a hormone called insulin, which controls blood glucose.
"You need to take insulin every day to keep your blood glucose levels under control. Managing type 1 diabetes can take time to get used to, but you can still do all the things you enjoy. This guide is here to help. Type 1 diabetes is not linked with age or being overweight – these things are linked with type 2 diabetes."
Type 1 diabetes symptoms include:
- Feeling very thirsty
- Peeing more than usual, particularly at night
- Feeling very tired
- Losing weight without trying
- Thrush that keeps coming back
- Blurred vision
- Cuts and grazes that are not healing
- Fruity-smelling breath
The risk of each individual will be assessed through a combination of tests including a finger-prick and venous blood tests which will look for autoantibodies – tools used by the immune system to earmark insulin-producing cells for destruction.
Dr Elizabeth Robertson, director of research at Diabetes UK, which is co-funding the study, said: “Identifying children at high risk of type 1 diabetes could put them and their families on the front foot, helping ensure a safe and soft landing into an eventual diagnosis… reducing the risk of life-altering complications.
“Every day without type 1 diabetes counts. Extra years without the condition means a childhood no longer lived on a knife-edge of blood sugar checks and insulin injections, free from the relentlessness and emotional burden of type 1 diabetes.”
The team, led by researchers at the University of Birmingham, will look for the markers which are said to appear years and as much as decades before symptoms can begin to appear.
Parth Narendran, Professor of Diabetes Medicine, and Dr Lauren Quinn, Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, said: “Screening children can reduce their risk of DKA at diagnosis around five-fold and can help them and their families settle into the type 1 diagnosis better.
“We know the value of identifying people at risk of type 1 diabetes and we have the tools to do so – now we need to understand how best to implement them in the UK.”
Dr Robertson added: “With the first immunotherapy for type 1 diabetes currently under review in the UK and the US, the era of being able to strike early to delay type 1 diabetes is within reach.
“The success of the next generation of preventative type 1 diabetes treatments depends on reaching as many people as possible who could benefit, and this can only be achieved through screening programmes.”
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