COXSACKIE CAUSE DIABETES?

Report #6552 7/10/95

The most recent research shows that many cases of juvenile diabetes are caused by infection with a common cold or intestinal virus called Coxsackie B.

One year ago, researchers in California and Florida reported that a coxsackie virus may cause juvenile diabetes. (1,2) An exciting new collaborative study shows that most children recently diagnosed with diabetes had been infected with coxsackie virus. (3) Either their mothers were infected with Coxsackie virus during the last part of pregnancy or the children were infected just prior to coming down with diabetes. This is very exciting news because, we should be able to prevent the type of juvenile diabetes associated with coxsackie virus by immunizing susceptible children against coxsackie virus soon after birth. In juvenile diabetes, the beta cells in the pancreas, that produce insulin, are destroyed. Since the body cannot produce insulin, blood sugar levels rise to cause diabetes. When a germ gets into your body, your immune system produces proteins/ called antibodies/ that attach to the surface of germs and kill them. The surface of the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas has an enzyme called GAD. The surface of the coxsackie virus has the same protein. So when a coxsackie virus gets into your body, you make antibodies against that virus which attach to and destroy the virus, but they also attach to the GAD protein in the pancreas and destroys the insulin- producing cells in genetically susceptible children.

By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News