Scientists at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the University of Ottawa have discovered what may be an important clue to the cause of type 1 diabetes. Dr. Fraser Scott and his team tested 42 people with type 1 diabetes and found that nearly half had an abnormal immune response to wheat proteins. The study is published in the August 2009 issue of the journal Diabetes.

A report published on the Lancet medical journal's Online First website draws attention to a substantial rise in incidence of type 1 diabetes in children. Type 1 diabetes is also known as insulin-dependant diabetes. Parents of these children have the task of giving their children or babies insulin injections several times a day.

Type 1 diabetes is the most common chronic childhood disease. The management of this serious medical condition includes regular fingerstick glucose measurements, multiple daily injections of insulin, and frequent insulin dose adjustments. Because children spend a great deal of their time in school, school nurses often supervise medical decisions and diabetes care.

Scientists believe they may have found a preventative therapy for Type 1 diabetes, by making the body's killer immune cells tolerate the insulin-producing cells they would normally attack and destroy, prior to disease onset.

Treatment of chronic wounds is a continuing clinical problem and socio-economic burden with diabetic foot ulcers alone costing the NHS £300 million a year. Scientists in Bristol have found that human foetal stem cells can effectively be used to treat back leg ischaemic ulcers in a model of type 1 diabetes.

In a finding that could significantly influence the way type 1 diabetes is treated, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed a technique for transplanting insulin-producing pancreatic cells that causes only a minimal immune response in recipients.

More drafts usually mean a better product and so it also seems to go with the human immune system. As B cells develop, genes rearrange to allow their antibodies to recognize different foreign invaders or pathogens. But sometimes antibodies are created that recognize and attack the body’s own cells.

Many people who have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes develop retinopathy, a serious disorder that damages the eye's retina, the area of the back of the eye where images are focused and relayed to the brain's visual cortex.

Investigators combing the genome in the hope of finding genetic variants responsible for triggering early-onset diabetes may be looking in the wrong place, new research at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests.

A powerful antioxidant in green tea may prevent or delay the onset of type 1 diabetes, Medical College of Georgia researchers say.

Genetics researchers have identified two novel gene locations that raise the risk of type 1 diabetes. As they continue to reveal pieces of the complicated genetic puzzle for this disease, the researchers expect to improve predictive tests and devise preventive strategies.

A research study funded by JDRF suggests that a common intestinal bacteria may provide some protection from developing type 1 diabetes. The findings provide an important step towards understanding how and why type 1 diabetes develops in people, and may lead to potential cures.