VIRUSES that cause diarrhoea and vomiting may also trigger diabetes, a discovery that could one day lead to a vaccine.
Type 1 diabetes is genetic, but if one identical twin develops the disease, the other has only a 40 per chance of getting it too, so an environmental trigger must also be at work. One suspect is a family of viruses called Coxsackie B enteroviruses (CVB), which might prompt the immune system to attack insulin-producing pancreatic cells, causing diabetes.
To investigate, Noel Morgan at the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, UK, and colleagues analysed the pancreases of 72 children…
