Wheat may be the cause of nearly half of type I diabetes cases

This study was published in Diabetes 2009 Aug;58(8):1789-96

Study title and authors:
Diabetes-specific HLA-DR-restricted proinflammatory T-cell response to wheat polypeptides in tissue transglutaminase antibody-negative patients with type 1 diabetes.

Mojibian M, Chakir H, Lefebvre DE, Crookshank JA, Sonier B, Keely E, Scott FW.
Chronic Disease Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada.

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19401421

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease (autoimmune disease is where something triggers an abnormal immune response which causes the immune system to attack its own healthy cells and tissues) that occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys the insulin producing beta-cells in the pancreas, thereby stopping the production of insulin.

In this study, 42 individuals with type 1 diabetes were compared to 22 healthy individuals to discover if wheat protein produced an abnormal immune response.

Wheat protein may cause an abnormal immune response in about 0.4% of the general population.

The study found that almost half (47%) of the individuals with type I diabetes showed an abnormal response to wheat protein.

This study shows that wheat proteins provoke an abnormal immune response which may be responsible for nearly half of type 1 diabetes cases.