Pioneering research aims to identify the cause of diabetes: CU Denver's Barbara Davis Center is working to end type 1 diabetes one child at a time.

• Author: Cole, Rebecca

One of the first things Amy Lyden learned about her son Caleb was that he might develop diabetes. After being told at the hospital that Caleb had a gene marker putting him at a slightly higher risk of contracting the disease, she enrolled the newborn, now 3, in a global study called TEDDY.

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Comprised of six groups of research physicians from Germany, Sweden, Finland and the United States, TEDDY (The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young), has researched the causes of Type 1 diabetes since 2004 by monitoring children who have certain gene markers from birth onward.

Managed locally by the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes on the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus, the TEDDY study was piggybacked on pioneering research the center has conducted since 1993. For the past 15 years, the center's DAISY study (Diabetes Autoimmunity Study in the Young) genetically typed more than 30,000 newborns in Colorado; the TEDDY study plans to type 350,000 children worldwide.

The largest diabetes and endocrine care program in Colorado, the Barbara Davis Center treats about 80 percent of the state's children with Type 1 diabetes. With clinical and basic researchers working side-by-side with a large patient population, the center is at the forefront of research designed to predict the disease, identify its causes and understand how to prevent it.

Lyden says she was definitely anxious when she learned Caleb's diagnosis but never had any real fears, a fact she attributes largely to the family's positive experience with the study and the researchers.

"Although Caleb's risk has increased a little bit, that doesn't mean he will develop diabetes," Lyden says. "But if he does, by participating in this study we'll be able to catch it early."

More than 17 million people in the U.S have been diagnosed with diabetes at an estimated cost in 2007 of $174 billion, according to a recent report from the American Diabetes Association. Of those diagnosed, between 5 percent and 10 percent have Type 1 diabetes, the more serious form of the disease. Traditionally referred to as "childhood diabetes," although people of any age are susceptible, Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that causes pancreatic cells to be destroyed, eliminating the body's ability to make insulin.

By studying gene markers, or autoantibodies, like that found in Caleb's blood, researchers can better predict who will develop the disease and when.

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