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Study detects C-peptide production in diabetes patients decades after disease onset

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have identified insulin production in type 1 diabetes patients decades after disease onset.

The study reveals that C-peptide production can persist for decades after disease onset and remains functionally responsive.

This suggests that patients with advanced disease, whose ß-cell function was thought to have long ceased, may benefit from interventions to preserve ß-cell function or to prevent complications.

A novel ultrasensitive assay used by the Faustman Lab detected C-peptide in 80% of samples from type 1 diabetes patients at up to five years after disease onset and in 10% of samples from patients with 31-40 years’ disease duration.

While C-peptide levels showed a decline with increasing disease duration, the decline was over decades, not months as commonly thought, the researchers reported.

MGH Immunobiology Laboratory director Denise Faustman said the data shows that the pancreas can be fighting a battle for survival up to 40 years after disease onset, and possibly longer.