Capítulo 18 Diabetes mellitus tipo 1 en la encrucijada de la poliautoinmunidad

This chapter discusses the type 1 diabetes (T1D) mellitus at the crossroad of polyauto-immunity. T1D is a disease that affects all age groups, in contrary to the common conception of being a disease of the young. Its definition encircles two facts that are closely related. Patients that suffer from this disease are known as “insulin-dependent diabetics” (IDD), thus requiring regular doses of exogenous insulin to replace the absence of their own. Because of its highly heterogeneous epidemiology, it is preferred to describe the distribution of T1D according to geographic regions rather than to consider its incidence in the world. As described for many other autoimmune diseases (ADs) T1D is characterized for the presence of antibodies directed against self-antigens. However, these autoantibodies detected in T1D patients are not necessarily exclusive to the disease; they might be detected in the serum of patients with other ADs or vice versa