JDRF consortium defines roadmap for testing potential links between gut microbes and type 1 diabetes

One of the first questions a person or parent of a child diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) often asks is, “what caused this?” While we have learned a lot about T1D, we still do not have a simple answer to this question. We know genetics plays a role. Environmental factors also probably contribute to triggering the T1D autoimmune response, but which factors have yet to be defined. Evidence is building, however, that the microbes in your gut – known as your microbiome – may be a critical part of the answer, so JDRF has outlined a strategy for testing this potential link to T1D.

Members of the JDRF Microbiome Consortium, led by JDRF scientist Dr. Jessica Dunne, recently took a hard look at the evidence connecting alterations of the microbiome to the development of T1D. In a scientific review article, they describe several ways a person’s microbiome may be altered, including being raised in too clean an environment (the hygiene hypothesis), following certain diets, or engaging in common health practices such as frequent use of antibiotics.

Understanding microbiome alterations may be important in T1D since gut microbes help educate the immune system to distinguish “self” (a person’s tissue and cells) from “non-self” (foreign invaders like an infection). In T1D, an altered microbiome may confuse the developing immune system into mistaking beta cells as non-self and trigger the start of the autoimmune attack. Based on this and other theories, the article outlined key scientific questions for getting to the bottom of a possible link between the microbiome and T1D. JDRF is already funding research on some of these key questions, but sharing this roadmap with the scientific community will expand the effort and speed progress towards critical answers and potential prevention therapies.

“The first step is to identify and confirm the roles of these gut microbes in the T1D disease process,” Dr. Dunne notes. “This could then point us towards new approaches to hopefully prevent this disease. There is still a long way to go, but now we have a plan to get there.”

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Early exposure to microbes may be related to T1D.