Скачать или смотреть UF Health News: Mystery diagnosis: Discovery helps detect diabetes

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida researchers have identified a protein that affects how much insulin the body produces in people with a hereditary form of diabetes.

Called maturity onset diabetes of the young, or MODY, the disease can be difficult to detect and is sometimes misdiagnosed as the more common type 1or type 2 forms of diabetes, in part because doctors have not been looking at the full genetic picture, said Li-Jun Yang, M.D., an associate professor of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine in the UF College of Medicine.

If the disease has not been diagnosed, children with MODY are often treated with insulin injections like type 1 diabetes patients. The problem is, they don't need to be. Instead of insulin injections — which can be dangerous if not administered precisely throughout the day — patients with the most common form of MODY can take a pill that stimulates insulin production to treat their disease.

"The clinical treatment for MODY can be so simple if you diagnose the disease accurately," said Yang, the senior author of the study, which was published in April in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. "People will treat this either as type 1 or type 2, but that is not the best approach for managing this condition. That is why we think what we have discovered is so important."