Type 1 diabetes arises when the body erroneously attacks and damages islet cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. In a seeming paradox, researchers have found that men are more likely than women to harbor so-called islet cell autoantibodies, but are less prone to develop diabetes as a result.

This suggests to the team that “male relatives with the known risk factor of islet cell autoantibodies are less likely than comparable female relatives to progress to overt disease.” Or it may be that the disease process leading up to type 1 diabetes “among men is slower compared with women, or that women develop diabetes manifesting different antibody responses.”

Between 1994 and 2002, investigators connected with a diabetes prevention trial screened over 93,000 relatives of people with type 1 diabetes and found that more men than women had islet cell autoantibodies. This prompted the researchers to take a more in-depth look at the factors that might be involved.

According to a report in the medical journal Diabetes Care, Dr. Jeffrey P. Krischer from the University of South Florida in Tampa and colleagues found “only a subtle influence” of gender on the development of type 1 diabetes.

After factoring in race, age, and relationship to the person with diabetes, male sex was associated with the appearance of autoimmunity, namely the presence of islet cell autoantibodies. Male sex had no effect on the presence of other autoantibodies, insulin secretion or, as mentioned, the development of diabetes.

The team also reports that male offspring of diabetic fathers were more often positive for islet cell autoantibodies than female offspring. This, they note, contrasts with “a published report suggesting that the parent confers increased risk to the child of the opposite sex.”

SOURCE: Diabetes Care, August 2004.