Well, let’s start with what exactly Type 1 Diabetes is. Most notably found in young children (peak ages are 4-7 and 8-10), type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little to no insulin. Insulin production is crucial because it allows sugar to pass through your cells, lowers the amount of sugar in your blood, and when your blood sugar drops, the pancreas secretes insulin. Can you imagine what this might feel like as a young child?

However, the detection of MAIT lymphocytes could serve as new biomarkers for early detection and prevention for the illness. If you didn’t know, MAIT cells are found in the blood, liver, lungs, and mucosa, defending against microbial activity and infection. Type 1 diabetes is a lifelong illness without a cure, therefore with this crucial discovery, I believe that this will be one of the great steps toward the findings of a potential cure. This lead can serve as an outstanding aspect to the enhancement of one’s quality of life.

Experiments have been conducted where the presence of the MAIT cells, within the data, showed a link between the MAIT cells and metabolic disorders. This paved the way for the discovery of how MAIT cells are directly linked to the destruction of pancreatic beta cells

Additionally, a functional defect in MAIT cells is linked to the modifications of the gut mucosa which is seen in type 1 diabetes patients. The team’s discovery will hopefully translate to a developmental process dedicated to searching for new strategies to treat type 1 diabetes. Overall, we now know that the MAIT cells are early biomarkers for this form of diabetes due to the changes they undergo before the presence of the disease is developed. Do you think more break-throughs will arise in this field? Will there eventually be a formal prevention for type 1 diabetes? Finally, do you think there will ever be a cure to diabetes as a whole?