Participants did not have islet autoantibodies and had significantly lower median type 1 diabetes genetic risk score<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter<\/b>
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FRIDAY, Aug. 1, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A new diabetes subtype has been identified in Sub-Saharan Africans and Black Americans, according to a study published online July 21 in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology<\/em>.<\/p>\n Jean Claude Katte, Ph.D., from the University of Exeter Medical School in the United Kingdom, and colleagues conducted an observational, cross-sectional study involving participants without obesity of Black African ethnicity with young-onset (younger than 30 years) insulin-treated clinically diagnosed type 1 diabetes (248, 370, and 276 from Cameroon, Uganda, and South Africa). Islet autoantibodies were measured to GADA, IA-2A, and ZnT8A, and a genetic risk score (GRS) was calculated for type 1 diabetes. These findings were compared to those for participants with self-reported Black and White ancestry (429 and 2,602 participants, respectively) with type 1 diabetes from the U.S. SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth (SEARCH) study.<\/p>\n The researchers found that only 34.9 percent of participants were positive for islet autoantibodies; they had classic features of type 1 diabetes, including plasma C-peptide <200 pmol\/L (82.7 percent) and a high type 1 diabetes GRS. Compared with those with autoantibodies, those without islet autoantibodies had a significantly lower median type 1 diabetes GRS (9.66 versus 11.76); their clinical features and C-peptide concentrations were not consistent with that of type 2 diabetes. Autoantibody-negative diabetes was also seen in 15.1 percent of participants with Black ancestry in SEARCH; these participants also had a low type 1 diabetes GRS (median, 10.41). No such pattern was seen in White participants in SEARCH.<\/p>\n “This suggests that many young people in this region have a different form of type 1 diabetes altogether and is not autoimmune in origin,” coauthor Dana Dabelea, M.D., Ph.D., from the Colorado School of Public Health, said in a statement.<\/p>\n