Viral Infections Responsible For Diabetes Development

Viral infections are more responsible for diabetes development, than milk proteins. Identifying the exact virus responsible has been daunting for several reasons. People are exposed to many viral infections within their lifetime. Although IDDM is primarily a juvenile disease, by the time the disease is diagnosed, children have been exposed to many viruses. Pinpointing the exact one would be every difficult, if not impossible to link. Coxsackie B virus is an enterovirus, a virus part of a group of picornaviruses, related to those that cause polio. Do not take doxycycline without telling your doctor if you are breast-feeding a baby. Several studies have found that after or with exposure to Coxsackie B that individuals developed IDDM.

Large population studies have found antibodies against the virus in children with newly diagnosed IDDM. Coxsackie B viruses have been isolated from the pancreas in children who have developed IDDM very rapidly. Plus, inducing certain mouse strains with the virus has caused these mice to develop the disease. Molecular mimicry has been postulated in the case of Coxsackie B virus. The virus increases the expression of an enzyme GAD in the pancreas. GAD is a highly potent autoantigen of the autoimmune response in humans and mice models.

Factors that may be responsible for Coxsackie B and IDDM are altered immune system regulation because of viral infection, altered memory of the T cells causing them to forget which are “self” and “not self” in the presence of viral infection, and persistent infection of the beta cells because of viral antigens expressed within them. Although this all sounds promising, several other studies have not found conflicting results such as no difference in Coxsackie B antibodies between those with IDDM and those without it, along with no differences in prevalence and amount of antibodies responsible.

About 20 percent of fetal infected people with rubella will develop diabetes within 5-20 years.

In some adults, development of diabetes has occurred after infection with rubella. Do not take doxycycline without telling your doctor if you are breast-feeding a baby. Although this poses a threat to genetically susceptible people, vaccination programs have decreased the amount of rubella cases. There have been personal case reports of children developing IDDM after exposure to CMV. There have been recent studies done showing that newly diagnosed people with IDDM were recently exposed to CMV. It has been suggested that molecular mimicry may be partly responsible because CMV proteins share a resemblance with a protein in the islet cells of the pancreas.

It was discovered that about 20 percent of people with IDDM have CMV DNA in the islet cells. Despite all this evidence a large Swedish study found no correlation between CMV infection and risk for IDDM. Besides all of this, vaccinations against the virus have lowered the prevalence of CMV infections.