Islet cell health in new onset type 1 diabetes
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A cross-sectional study of islet cell health in new onset type 1 diabetes
IRAS ID
292348
Contact name
Colin M Dayan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff University
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Type 1 diabetes is a lifelong condition associated with many possible health problems, for which there is no cure. In type 1 diabetes, blood sugar levels are too high because the body is not able to make enough of a hormone called insulin. Insulin is normally made in the pancreas, and is released in response to eating food. In order to make and release insulin, the pancreas breaks down something called proinsulin into insulin and another protein called C-peptide. Studies have suggested that in type 1 diabetes, the pancreas becomes less efficient at turning proinsulin into insulin, and that the ability of the pancreas to make other hormones and digestive enzymes is also affected.
We will use blood samples taken during previous studies to measure how well the pancreas is able to make hormones and digestive enzymes in people with a recent diagnosis of type 1 diabetes compared with healthy people and people who have had diabetes for many years. We hope to understand how the function of the pancreas changes over time in type 1 diabetes, and to find new ways of measuring pancreatic function in type 1 diabetes. We hope that this work will help us identify new markers of disease progression and severity which could be used to predict which individuals with type 1 diabetes are at higher risk of poor outcomes, but also to measure the impact of new treatments which aim to maintain pancreatic function and improve pancreatic prohormone processing on clinical outcomes in individuals with type 1 diabetes.
REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/WM/0100
Date of REC Opinion
9 Apr 2021
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion