Testing the Accelerator Hypothesis: Body Size, β-Cell Function, and Age at Onset of Type 1 (Autoimmune) Diabetes
Response to Wilkin
- Dana Dabelea, MD, PHD and
- for the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study Group
- 1University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado
- Address correspondence to Dana Dabelea, MD, PhD, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, 4200 East 9th Ave., Box C245, Denver, CO 80262. E-mail: dana.dabelea{at}UCHSC.edu
We thank Dr. Wilkin (1) for his valuable comments. Overall, we (2) did not observe the hypothesized association between increasing BMI and younger age at onset of diabetes among U.S. youth with autoimmune diabetes. Our results were similar to a report from Birmingham, U.K. (3), and one from Philadelphia (4). They were in contrast to three previous European studies (5,6,7). However, we did observe the inverse association among youth with low residual insulin secretion at diagnosis (fasting C-peptide [FCP] <0.5 ng/ml). We hypothesize that obesity is “accelerating” the onset of the disease at a …
