With the new addition of zinc transporter (ZnT8 autoantibody), about 94% of T1Ds are autoantibody positive. That is a high percentage of people IMO. If a person has been diagnosed with diabetes (FBG greater than 125 mg/dl), given a Type 2 diagnosis, and is autoantibody positive, the person is one of the well-documented 10-20% "Type 2s" who are misdiagnosed and actually have Type 1 autoimmune diabetes. Yes, a very low percentage of people will be autoantibody positive but not have diabetes, but no one knows if those people will eventually develop diabetes, because they have not been followed for any length of time (in T1D TrialNet, researchers watch and predict development of diabetes based on number and titre of autoantibodies). The important thing is, autoantibody testing is extremely useful in cases where someone has been diagnosed with diabetes, for identifying autoimmune versus non-autoimmune diabetes. For the misdiagnosed, it can be life or death.
Amazing, we finally have an example of someone being cured of T2!
I was cured of Type 2 also! I have Kaiser insurance, and for some reason when I was relatively new in the system, even though I'd already seen the endo, my records said I had Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. I caught it when I saw my chart at my annual eye exam. I asked my endo to take the Type 2 off my chart, and she did, so like AR I was also cured. It's so easy to be cured of Type 2 on electronic records.
Dr. Faustman's Lab found that people who have had type 1 for 15 years or longer still have measurable c peptide levels and production, however small, and the people in her first human trial had a rise in c peptide levels when given the tb vaccine. So I think her theory now is that the autoimmune reaction is still ongoing, on some level, even after years of having type 1. I'm not sure how that would relate to lowering of antibody levels when c peptide levels reduce even further. The lab they send the tests to is in Sweden and uses very sensitive assay to measure c peptide levels.
It’s all very confusing to me Chuck. Personally, if I were one to wish upon a star, I’d wish we could take a group of passionate diabetes researchers and docs, lock them in a room and not let them out until they totally revise the classification, diagnostic, and standard of care for those of us who are glucose regulation impaired!