A new blood test can detect early signs of childhood diabetes, creating a wider range of strategies to identify childhood diseases.
In the medical study published by Nature Medicine, scientists reported that by using plasma tests in young children, they can now identify the risks of children developing liver disease, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.
Dr Cristina Legido-Quigley, group leader in systems medicine at King’s College London and head of systems medicine at the Steno Diabetes Centre Copenhagen (SDCC) explained that this research could be the first step in preventing the disease entirely.
She said: “In the future, this has the potential to be an entirely new way to evaluate someone’s personal risk of disease and by studying how to change lipid molecules in the body, we could even prevent metabolic diseases like diabetes altogether.”
The research is based around an individual’s circumstances, in a process called personalised medicine.
Dr Legido-Quigley said: “You’re doing a test and doing a treatment for that person, instead of looking at averages of thresholds.
“The research provides high-quality testing that acknowledges that not everybody’s the same.”
For decades, research has depended on a categorization system of lipids that has reduced them into arbitrary binaries of good or bad cholesterol.
This system was over-simplistic as it dismissed the fact that there are a wide variety of factors that can influence the risk of childhood diabetes.
Rather than simply examining the presence of bad cholesterol, or making a judgment based on whether or not a child has obesity, scientists would be able to identify a risk of childhood diabetes by examining other factors.
Dr Legido-Quigley said: “What I can tell you from the scientist’s point of view, is that any disease is going to be, it’s going to have a molecular basis.
“It doesn’t have to be related to weight.
“For example, they can relate to the person’s genetics.”
Dr Ledgido-Quigley makes comparisons to the BMI which she argued is an outdated approach to understanding the quality of a person’s health and the likelihood of them developing diseases.
She said: “BMI, you can imagine, doesn’t work in many others, and works even less in children, because children don’t grow at the same rate”.
“By recognizing that the BMI is a standardized measure, scientists can look into better ways of measuring a healthy weight.
“So if we know about molecules and their function, then we don’t need to be so reductionistic.”
The blood plasma test is used in many hospitals in the US, such as Mayo Clinic.
Dr. Karolina Sulek, formerly the principal investigator at Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen commended the research.
She said: “The study provides strong evidence of the great need for obesity management and gives parents the confidence to intervene in their children’s life more compassionately, helping them to lose weight.”
Join the discussion