For 20 years, researchers in several countries have followed around 8,700 children in the TEDDY diabetes study.
Now all data collection is complete and it is time to end the study.
And it has already led to discoveries, such as that enteroviruses can trigger type 1 diabetes in some children.
The last children who were part of the collection phase of the TEDDY study will soon turn 15. Then all data collection ends and now the work begins to analyze a large international study whose purpose is to find out why people get diabetes.
– Now, of course, we continue to analyze all the data. It can take several years to analyze the data and find the different angles to find out why you first develop autoantibodies and then type 1 diabetes, says Helena Elding Larsson, pediatrician and professor at Lund University.
Her colleague Markus Lundgren at Lund University, who is also a pediatrician and diabetes researcher, sees great value in all the data collected:
– The data will be able to remain to be worked with as a fantastic child and youth study for many, many years to come.
New discoveries
The study has followed children for 20 years in Sweden, Finland, Germany and the USA. Approximately 8,700 children have been included in the study and new discoveries have already been made. For example, that probiotics given to infants who have an increased risk of diabetes can reduce the risk that the body develops the antibodies that are a precursor to the disease. But also that a certain type of infection, enterovirus infections, can trigger type 1 diabetes.
– Enteroviruses like this are common and many people can have it without anything happening at all. But for some reason, some children are sensitive and then this can trigger autoimmunity. We don’t know why it happens to some children and it is things like this that we are analyzing, says Helena Elding Larsson.