Idiopathic Type 1 Diabetes in Dallas
- Antonio Piñero-Piloña, MD ,
- Patrick Litonjua, MD ,
- Larissa Aviles-Santa, MD and
- Philip Raskin, MD
- Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Medical School, Dallas, Texas
In this issue of Diabetes Care, the letter by Bennett et al. (1) in response to our study (2) points out a huge problem that we wished to previously identify. The problem is “the importance of a name” (3). Dr. Bennett and his colleagues (1), who are respected epidemiologists, considered our study subjects to have type 2 diabetes, whereas we determined that they met the diagnostic criteria for idiopathic type 1 diabetes.
According to the report of the Expert Committee on the Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus (4), idiopathic type 1 diabetes is described as follows: “This form of diabetes is strongly inherited, lacks immunological evidence for β-cell autoimmunity, and is not HLA associated. An absolute requirement for insulin replacement therapy in affected patients may come and go.” Even in “typical” …
