The "Sardinia-IDDM study": an attempt to unravel the cause of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in one of the countries with the highest incidence of the disease in the world.

Sardinia and Finland have the highest incidence of IDDM in the world. Thus, both regions represent ideal observatories for investigating the environmental, genetic and immunological factors, which have led to this dramatic increase. We have concentrated our efforts in Sardinia. Among several projects, there is the mapping of the Island for hot and cold spots for overt IDDM. In order to map the Island for pre-IDDM, we have collected and bled around 10,000 school children (age 6-14 years) and we are now in the process to enroll around 30,000 newborn. We report here our initial results, which show that progression to IDDM is accompanied in both cohorts by the presence of a combination of ICA with either GAD and IA-2 antibodies or both. This approach should lead to design reliable models of IDDM prediction in the general population, which will benefit an early insulin treatment and, hopefully, an effective prevention of the disease.