• Diabetes

Can we screen for diabetes mellitus (DM)? Should we screen for DM? When should we do it? Once an asymptomatic child or young adult is identified as being at risk of developing diabetes in the future, what can we do about it? There are several autoantibodies and other markers (islet cell autoantibodies, autoantibodies against insulin, insulinoma associated protein 2 and glutamic acid decarboxylase) that can be used as predictors for future development of DM. Indeed, once seroconversion to positive islet cell autoantibodies, it is likely that clinical DM will occur within 15 years. There are prospective …