The antibiotic “gentamicin” could increase the risk of developing type 1 diabetes in children who have a genetic predisposition to this chronic disease.
- The onset of type 1 diabetes is increasingly precocious, especially in children under 5 years of age.
- In half of the cases, this chronic disease appears before the age of 20.
Between 2015 and 2017, the number of cases of type 1 diabetes that appeared each year was 19.5 per 100,000 children under 15 in France, according to health insurance. Over the past two decades, there has been an increase in the number of cases in children and adolescents, of about 3 to 4% per year.
Type 1 diabetes: a new risk factor has been identified
As a reminder, type 1 diabetes is characterized by too high a level of sugar in the blood, hyperglycemia. It is from lack of insulin secretion by the pancreas. This cessation of insulin production is caused by an abnormal reaction of the immune system: T lymphocytes identify cells in the pancreas that produce insulin as cells that are foreign to the body and eliminate them.
This disease can be linked to a genetic predisposition or be triggered by external events such as viral infections, diet, later age of motherhood, exposure to toxins, etc. But, according to a study published in the journal NatureCommunicationstaking the antibiotic “gentamicin” could also be a risk factor.
Gentaminicin: the antibodies produced by taking this antibiotic in question
In detail, it is the antibodies produced by taking this drug that would increase the risk of developing this disease. To reach this conclusion, the scientists studied blood tests of nearly 300 people with type 1 diabetes and compared them to those of healthy controls.
They also analyzed samples from the Youth Diabetes Autoimmunity Study. This did not indicate whether the participants had received gentamicin, but the scientists relied on the fact that between 5 and 10% of newborns receive this antibiotic to treat a life-threatening sepsis. Indeed, according to the world health organizationgentamicin is recommended for the management of neonates in the setting of a bacterial infection.
The indirect role of glycans in the development of diabetes
Scientists have discovered that a higher level of antibodies linked to taking gentamicin was associated with an increased risk of having type 1 diabetes. It is in particular glycans, a type of molecule, which are pointed singled out by scientists.
The authors studied antibodies against 202 glycans in the blood of 278 people with type 1 diabetes, compared with 298 healthy people considered to be controls. Thus, they observed that glycan-specific antibodies could also have an indirect role in the control of the immune response and the development of type 1 diabetes.
In the future, the team intends to continue their research to better understand the role of these antibodies and to analyze the link between the antibiotic “gentamicin” and the development of type 1 diabetes in a larger number of participants.
