[Immunogenetic and functional study of first-degree relatives of patients with type I diabetes mellitus for identifying prediabetic subjects]

Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus is an autoimmune disease with HLA-related genetic susceptibility. There is a latent phase before overt disease. During this phase islet cell antibodies (ICA) as a marker of humoral autoimmunity are detected and i.v. glucose tolerance test (IVGTT) is decreased. The aim of our work was to correlate IVGTT, HLA typing and ICA testing in all siblings of IDDM patients in order to identify high risk subjects (HRS). IVGTT showed significantly lower insulin levels in siblings vs controls (P less than 0.0001). This phenomenon could be caused by HLA unrelated genetic predisposition to low insulin secretion. Insulin level values of ICA+ siblings were lower than those of ICA- siblings, even if the difference was not significant.