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Diabetes

Primary prevention for type 1 diabetes mellitus?

Attempts to prevent type 1 diabetes mellitus have been limited to interventions in patients who have already lost immune tolerance to pancreatic β cells. However, in a new report, orally administered insulin initiates immune protection in young children at increased risk of the disease.

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Figure 1: Mucosal-administered insulin protects from type 1 diabetes mellitus.

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Acknowledgements

B.O.R. would like to thank the Dutch Diabetes Research Foundation, the DON Foundation, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the European Commission (EU-FP7: NAIMIT, EE-ASI & BetaCellTherapy) for research funding support.

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Correspondence to Bart O. Roep.

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The author declares no competing financial interests.

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Roep, B. Primary prevention for type 1 diabetes mellitus?. Nat Rev Endocrinol 11, 451–452 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrendo.2015.95

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