Rubella Infection and Diabetes Mellitus

Natural History of Type 1 Diabetes

“…Therefore, it is possible that many common RNA viral infections may induce islet autoimmunity in genetically susceptible patients. The most compelling evidence for an association between viral infection and subsequent development of type 1 diabetes is the high prevalence of diabetes among children with congenital rubella infection (55). Acute enterovirus infections have also been associated with the appearance of serum autoantibodies to islet antigens by some investigators (8,56), but others could not confirm such observations (57,58).…”

Congenital rubella and diabetes mellitus

“…The first cohort of CR patients to be carefully studied for diabetes was born in 1940-1942 and examined by us as adults [10]. This cohort was drawn partly from the patients first described by the Australian ophthalmologist Dr (later Sir) Norman Gregg [4].…”

“…However, in the early literature there are a number of CR patients with childhood-or adolescent-onset type 1-like disease, some with severe diabetic complications, who did not come to Gale's notice [10,12]. So we consider that the children and adolescents described by L. Cooper and colleagues following the 1964-1965 outbreak in New York, 6% of whom had type 1-like diabetes, are more likely than not to be representative of the rate of type 1 disease in CR in most Western communities [13].…”

Juvenile diabetes mellitus: possibility of prevention.

“…Thus MacDonald (1974) compared the ancestors of patients with type 1 with a control group and found an equal incidence of diabetes mellitus, surprising as this may be for several reasons. Separate groups of JOD and MOD (of the young) were studied by Tattersall and Fajans (1975b Isolated growth hormone deficiency Cudworth and Woodrow (1974 Optdiatrophy elapsing pancretitis not in rubella by Menser et al (1974Menser et al ( , 1978. In Photomyoclonus, diabetes, deafness, nephropathy, and cerebral Sardinia, Contu et al (1976) (1976) suggested an increased risk to siblings of the propositus, while Koivisto et al (1977) found it at its a family possessing diabetic relatives, picks out this greatest when JOD coexisted with coeliac disease.…”