Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is commonly understood to result from autoimmune destruction of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. However, emerging evidence suggests that the disease may present differently in individuals from sub-Saharan Africa. To explore this, a study examined the phenotypes and genetic risk scores (GRS) of 894 individuals with young-onset T1D from Cameroon, Uganda, and South Africa. The study revealed that only 34.9% of participants tested positive for islet autoantibodies.
These individuals displayed typical characteristics of T1D, including plasma C-peptide levels below 200 pmol/L and elevated T1D GRS. In contrast, 65.1% of participants who were autoantibody-negative exhibited significantly lower median T1D GRS. Interestingly, the study also reported that 15.1% of Black participants in a U.S. cohort had autoantibody-negative diabetes with low T1D GRS—a pattern not…
